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Apr 21, 2024

What Jesus Wants for Us, Part 2

What Jesus Wants for Us, Part 2

Passage: John 17:6-9

Speaker: Patrick Lafferty

Series: Practice the Presence - Prayer

Keywords: truth, word, sent, sanctify

st week we asked what Jesus wants for us. In that we find His prayers for us. And in what He prays for us we find not only what to pray for ourselves also, but perhaps a new motivation, born of him endearing himself to us in what he wants and prays for us. Last week we learned he wanted our protection in a certain sense. This week we find he wants for us to be prepared for presence in power.

Readings & Scripture

PREPARATION: Psalm 29:1-2, 5-6, 9-10

LEADER: Ascribe to the LORD, O heavenly beings,
ascribe to the LORD glory and strength.
Ascribe to the LORD the glory due his name;
worship the LORD in the splendor of holiness.

ALL: The voice of the LORD breaks the cedars;
the LORD breaks the cedars of Lebanon.
He makes Lebanon to skip like a calf,
and Sirion like a young wild ox.

LEADER: The voice of the LORD makes the deer give birth
and strips the forests bare,
and in his temple all cry, “Glory!”

ALL: The LORD sits enthroned over the flood;
the LORD sits enthroned as king forever.
May the LORD give strength to his people!
May the LORD bless his people with peace!

AFFIRMATION OF FAITH/CREEDAL STATEMENT/SCRIPTURE READING: John 8:31-38

LEADER: John 8:31 So Jesus said to the Jews who had believed him, “If you abide in my word, you are truly my disciples, 32 and you will know the truth, and the truth will set you free.” 33 They answered him, “We are offspring of Abraham and have never been enslaved to anyone. How is it that you say, ‘You will become free’?” John 8:34 Jesus answered them, “Truly, truly, I say to you, everyone who practices sin is a slave to sin. 35 The slave does not remain in the house forever; the son remains forever. 36 So if the Son sets you free, you will be free indeed. 37 I know that you are offspring of Abraham; yet you seek to kill me because my word finds no place in you. 38 I speak of what I have seen with my Father, and you do what you have heard from your father.”

CENTRAL TEXT: John 17:6-9, 14-19

“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. 7 Now they know that everything that you have given me is from you. 8 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. 9 I am praying for them. I am not praying for the world but for those whom you have given me, for they are yours.

John 17:14 I have given them your word, and the world has hated them because they are not of the world, just as I am not of the world. 15 I do not ask that you take them out of the world, but that you keep them from the evil one. 16 They are not of the world, just as I am not of the world. 17 Sanctify them in the truth; your word is truth. 18 As you sent me into the world, so I have sent them into the world. 19 And for their sake I consecrate myself, that they also may be sanctified in truth.

CONFESSION OF SIN:
LEADER: Let us confess our sin to God.

ALL: We come to confession perhaps wondering if You are weary with us. And then we look upon the Cross and find reason to believe your love is inexhaustible. IN that we discover both the humility and courage to own our error and receive your mercy. So, forgive us for seeing most things as either less than a gift or more than their worth. Forgive us for what we have done, and what we have left undone. Forgive us for thinking we can atone or make ourselves acceptable. We come with empty hands. We ask You to fill them again with your grace.

ABSOLUTION OF PARDON: Romans 5:7, 8
LEADER: For one will scarcely die for a righteous person—though perhaps for a good person one would dare even to die— but God shows his love for us in that while we were still sinners, Christ died for us.

BENEDICTION: Ephesians 2:8-10
LEADER: For by grace you have been saved through faith. And this is not your own doing; it is the gift of God, not a result of works, so that no one may boast. 10 For we are his workmanship, created in Christ Jesus for good works, which God prepared beforehand, that we should walk in them.

RELATED SCRIPTURES:

  • Deuteronomy 15:19
  • John 3:17
  • John 3:21, 8:32
  • John 10:36

DISCUSSION QUESTIONS:

  1. We begin in a vein similar to last week, but this time about your longing for another. Name some relationship in which you have wanted something good for them. Who was it? What was it? Why that? What lengths did you take to see it come to reality, insofar as you had power to do so? 
  2. Refresh your memory from the passage and sermon: what does Jesus want for those who follow Him? 
  3. We likened being “sanctified” to being prepared with the truth of Jesus. How is one thusly prepared? What actions are within our power? Which are beyond it? What can we seek to do to that end? What can we only process in response?
  4. They were “sent” with a message and a presence of Christ. What do you remember from the sermon about being present to our world with the presence of Christ? What are several ways one might manifest that presence?
  5. How is the way Jesus “consecrated” himself similar to the way he wants his own to be sanctified in the truth (note: both “consecrate” and “sanctify” are the same original word)? How is it distinct? How is the unique version of his being
  6. Read the article below about the “reach” of forgiveness. How does that story of forgiveness affect you? How could you explain to someone why Cancilde acted as she has?

Illustrations

InView Media Album

QUOTES: 

 

  •  …Christians ought to have a modest but real messianic complex about themselves. Do we honor him if we think we are not messianic or were not so sent? F.D. Bruner
  • The world is our goal, not our source; our place of work, not the measure of our worth; our mission, not our Messiah; the persons whom we are to love and, yet, much of whose motives we are to distrust. Not easy combinations; but an exciting and challenging mission, requiring all the wisdom we can get from Jesus and from his gift of the Paraclete to the Church. F.D. Bruner
  • To be Christian is to be obliged to engage the world, pursuing God’s restorative purposes over all of life. James Davison Hunter, To Change the World: The Irony, Tragedy, and Possibility of Christianity in the Late Modern World
  • . . .however inadequate or pitiful the church may seem at times (and may, in fact, be), where the scripture is proclaimed, the sacraments administered, and the people of God continue to seek to follow God in word and deed, God is at work; the Holy Spirit is still very much active. James Davison Hunter, To Change the World: The Irony, Tragedy, and Possibility of Christianity in the Late Modern World
  • It is, after all, much easier to vote for a politician who champions child welfare than to adopt a baby born in poverty, to vote for a referendum that would expand health care benefits for seniors than to care for an elderly and infirmed parent, and to rally for racial harmony than to get to know someone of a different race than yours. True responsibility invariably costs. Political participation, then, can and often does amount to an avoidance of responsibility. James Davison Hunter, To Change the World: The Irony, Tragedy, and Possibility of Christianity in the Late Modern World
  • The obligation among artists who are Christians is, among other things, to demonstrate in ways that are imaginative and compelling that materiality is not enough for a proper understanding of human experience; that there is durability and permanence as well as eternal qualities that exist beyond what we see on the surface of life. In this, they must show a depth and complexity to people and the world that defy the one- or two-dimensional existence of modern life. In the process, it is possible to symbolically portray possibilities of beauty and fullness we have not yet imagined. James Davison Hunter, To Change the World: The Irony, Tragedy, and Possibility of Christianity in the Late Modern World
  • One of the problems I discern in the progressive Christian turn against penal substitutionary atonement is the eclipse of grace, reducing the cross to ethics. To be clear, I share concerns with certain expressions of penal substitutionary atonement. But when you work with a prison population you come to see, first-hand, the transformative power of forgiveness and grace. A Christianity that is reduced to ethical action in the world misses the gospel of grace. Your shame has been overcome. Your guilt undone. While we were yet sinners, Christ died for us. God does not treat us as our sins deserve. As far as the east is from the west, so far has God removed our transgressions from us. Nothing can separate you from the love of God. You have been washed in the blood of the Lamb. By his wounds you have been healed. Richard Beck
  • Emmanuel is the one I ask for help when my house needs repair. He comes any time I ask, to replace a window or mend the roof. If my cow has problems, I call him. And he knows he’s always welcome to share a meal at my home. He is my son! A Rwandan woman named Cancilde
  • Here is your brother, and—there is no need to talk to him about what is past. Aslan from C.S. Lewis’s, The Lion, The Witch, and the Wardrobe

BOOKS / DOCS