Recently, as I was reading in the Bible, I came across a particularly intriguing prayer. This prayer was prayed the night before Jesus was crucified, and it was prayed by Jesus Himself.
As the Lord develops His prayer for the disciples following Him at that moment, He mentions all the tender, loving things that one would expect Jesus to say if we imagined Him praying for us today. However, there is one aspect of this prayer that specifically addresses believers in every age.
The thought that Jesus puts forth as He prays will directly bear on all believers and their effectiveness in the kingdom of God from that time forward.....
Look at the words of Jesus in this part of His prayer:
John 17:20-23
20 "My prayer is not for them alone. I pray also for those who will believe in me through their message,
21 that all of them may be one, Father, just as You are in Me and I am in You. May they also be in Us so that the world may believe that You have sent Me.
22 I have given them the glory that You gave Me, that they may be one as We are one:
23 I am in them and You are in Me. May they experience such perfect unity that the world will know that You sent Me and that You love them as much as You love Me.
Oneness and unity is expressed several times as Jesus prays His prayer for us. The importance of this should not be underestimated. He knows what we will desperately need in order to carry out His plan for us in the Kingdom of God, and this is a vital part of it.
Check out these phrases mentioned in His prayer:
John 17:20-23
20 "My prayer is not for them alone. I pray also for those who will believe in me through their message,
21 that all of them may be one, Father, just as You are in Me and I am in You. May they also be in Us so that the world may believe that You have sent Me.
22 I have given them the glory that You gave Me, that they may be one as We are one:
23 I am in them and You are in Me.
May they experience such perfect unity that the world will know that You sent Me and that You love them as much as You love Me.
Jesus desire for the believer's oneness is being powerfully expressed in this prayer.
The Lord repeated this idea of oneness many times as He was praying for those yet to believe the gospel. Apparently, something in this concept is very important in order to make us effective in our approach of presenting Christ to the lost world.
One reason Jesus emphasizes His desire several times in this prayer is that He knows the important results that will come from His children being one. He reveals it to us in this passage of Scripture as we read further.
Look at these two phrases:
-- so that the world may believe that You have sent Me
-- that the world will know that You sent Me and that You love them as much as You love Me.
What a powerful thought!
In order for the lost world to effectively recognize that Jesus was sent from God, His children have to work together in unity and oneness.
The images expressed in Jesus' prayer moves my mind to think about the beginning of the first church in the book of Acts. Let's look in on the disciples at the time right before the new church was birthed.
Acts 2:1
1 When the day of Pentecost came, they were all together in one place.
We must be careful not to discount the phrase "all together in one place" as it is used here. The Greek definition of "all together" is important.
homothumadón;--- unanimous, of one mind, one and the same temperament. With one mind, with unanimous consent, in one accord, all together
The Holy Spirit is carefully describing the condition of the believers as the beginning of the church was imminent (about to happen at any moment). That event came while the believers were in oneness with each other and that is very significant.
Jesus was starting His church in the state of how He wanted it to function normally. In order to fulfill the plan that God had for those believers, they would have to operate in unity.
Hints of oneness surrounding this new church are expressed over and over as we look at the following statements of Scripture found in Acts chapter 2:
Vs 2 .....filled the whole house where they were sitting
Vs 3 ..... came to rest on each of them
Vs 4 ......All of them were filled with the Holy Spirit
Vs 4 .....and (understood "all") began to speak in other languages...
Vs 44 .... All the believers were together ....
Vs 46 .... Day by day continuing with one mind in the temple...
Vs 46 .... they were taking their meals together ....
See how the new believers acted!
The spirit of oneness seemed to hover over all that they were doing. This is exactly how Jesus had prayed that they would be!
The differences they may have had otherwise, had no adverse effect on their oneness in Christ.
At this point of their existence, let's take a look at believers acting the way Jesus had prayed for them to and what it produced:
Vs 41 ..... So then, those who had received His word were baptized.....
Vs 42 They devoted themselves to the apostles' teaching and to the
fellowship, to the breaking of bread and to prayer.
Vs 43 Everyone was filled with awe, and many wonders and miraculous
signs were done by the apostles.
Vs 44 All the believers were together and had everything in common.
Vs 45 Selling their possessions and goods, they gave to anyone as he had need.
Vs 47 .... praising God....
Vs 47 .... having favor with all the people....
Vs 47 .... the Lord was adding to their number day by day those who were being saved.
Awesome things were happening among the believers!!!!
Isn't this all so great? .....the blessings? ......the power? .....the reputation before the lost world? Almost any church existing today would deeply desire to have these things actively working in their congregation, but many are content without them.
I am convinced that when we believers act like the new church that Jesus started, then we can also expect God to bless us similar to the way that He did those new believers.
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What a simple church growth plan...... believers being filled with the Holy Spirit and acting in oneness........
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It really is easy for me (or any of us, for that matter) to sit on the sidelines with our smug, religious smiles and feel that we are the only ones that really "get it". But the truth is, do we really? Many of us have some knowledge of the idea of oneness, but putting it into action seems to bring up conflicts within our carefully constructed religious walls. Those conflicts can become concrete barriers between us and the blessings of God unless we are willing to break them down. (It really doesn't matter whether your church is contemporary or traditional, we all have a tendency to build our own religious walls.)
Consider these hindrances to oneness in the body of Christ:
--Older traditional mindsets conflicting with newer contemporary thinkers.
--Denominational centered Christians.
--Prideful "I know more than you know" kind of Christians.
--Selfish centered ministries.
--Ministry "machines" operated by flesh-guided minds.
..... You get the idea.
--Some believers even carry the attitude of "You all can be one with me if you like, but I will never lower my standards to be one with you".
Satan has done a marvelous job of screwing up the oneness that God's children should have. It is no wonder that the world laughs at the Jesus we present to them.
This explains a lot of things to me. I now better understand why most of the world ridicules Christians and denies that Jesus is anyone special.
The division of Christians greatly hinders the effectiveness of the church.
For the lost world to grasp the knowledge that God sent Jesus to this world, we have to express the oneness that Jesus prayed for us to have.
The hardest part of getting to this oneness is unlearning our religious ways. Religion has taught us that if someone does not agree with our views on the Scripture, then we need to separate ourselves from them and condemn their "doctrinal errors".
What if -- just what if -- we decided to use the 1st church's basis of oneness and fellowship?
I believe that that is found in the following verses:
Acts 2:40-41
40 And with many other words he solemnly testified and kept on exhorting them, saying, "Be saved from this perverse generation!"
41 So then, those who had received his word were baptized; and that day there were added about three thousand souls.
They were believers in Christ. This is their whole basis of oneness and fellowship!
Look at this:
Acts 2:44
44 And all those who had believed were together and had all things in common;
You see -- and I say this with the greatest love for the Scripture -- those Bible passages where we usually part ways with our brothers and sisters in Christ were not even written at the time the new church was started. In fact, none of the New Testament was given by the Holy Spirit to its writers yet.
Let me remind you of something that may shock some people. At one time, there were no Baptists, Methodists, Presbyterians, Churches of Christ, Churches of God, Christian Churches, Catholics, Episcopalians, or Lutherans yet! (Just to let you know, John the Baptist had nothing to do with today's denominational term.)
In fact, how weird would it have been at the birth of the new church for someone to have said," Hey everyone, let's all divide up, call ourselves by different names, believe different things, and be against each other." And yet, this is standard operating procedure with many churches today.
All that the world had at the birth of the new church were true believers in Christ. They existed and operated in the state of oneness with each other just like Jesus had prayed for them to do.
Jesus filled them up with the Holy Spirit, and that small group changed the world.
Sometimes we struggle to change our neighborhood or city and feel powerless and defeated.
No wonder...........
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There is a way for believers to operate in oneness, but we have to be willing to love our brothers and sisters in Christ unconditionally. We have to be willing to step down from being the judge of others and acknowledge our own weaknesses and fallibility.
When we do that, we then can begin to love other believers with the love that Jesus has for us all. We then can accept our brothers and sisters solely on the basis that they have received Christ as Savior just as we have. We would not place any religious "hoops" for them to jump through, no standards to attain, no rules to strictly keep, and no religious requirements to meet in order for us to be one with them. All they would have to know is Christ as Savior, then, we, in God's love, could be at one with them and they with us.
When the body of Christ lives in this oneness, then what Jesus said about Himself will come true:
John 17:23
..... May they experience such perfect unity that the world will know that You sent Me and that You love them as much as You love Me.
Maybe we will then be able to impact the world just as the new church did.
Humbly submitted,
Dan
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