Telling the Truth

Guest (Male): Do you ever think about the apostles being just ordinary people? Those ordinary people ended up changing the world, and they found comfort in unity. Today, Stuart is talking about the comfort we find in being united. He'll get started in just a moment.

When life storms suddenly come your way, how do you respond? Do you doubt God's presence, questioning His concern for you? Or do you see storms as part of God's plan for your life and rest assured He cares for you and is in control of all things?

We want to help you trust in God's care and control in all the storms you face by sending you Jill Briscoe's message, "Weathering the Storms of Life," as well as a set of 12 beautifully designed scripture cards to encourage you in troubled times. "Weathering the Storms of Life" and the set of 12 scripture cards are our thanks for your gift to help more people experience life through the teaching and resources of *Telling the Truth*.

Request your copy when you give today. Call 1-800-889-5388. That's 1-800-889-5388, or give online at tellingthetruth.org. Now, here's Stuart with what we can learn about finding comfort through our unity with others on today's *Telling the Truth*.

Stuart Briscoe: There's only one place in the Bible where we have specific details of how the Lord Jesus prayed for people like you and me. That is found in the latter part of John's gospel and the 17th chapter. Obviously, the last part of John 17 is very significant. First of all, because it teaches us that Jesus prayed for us, and secondly, it tells us what He prayed for us. Therefore, it's helpful for us to know what it's all about.

So let me read to you from John 17, commencing with verse 20. The Lord Jesus said, "My prayer is not for them alone"—that's referring to the disciples in the room with him, the eleven disciples—"my prayer is not just for the eleven in the room with me. I pray also for those who will believe in me through their message, 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. I have given them the glory that you gave me, that they may be one as we are one, I in them and you in me. May they be brought to complete unity, to let the world know that you sent me and have loved them even as you have loved me."

"Father, I want those you have given me to be with me where I am and to see my glory—the glory you have given me because you loved me before the creation of the world. Righteous Father, though the world does not know you, I know you, and they know that you have sent me. I have made you known to them and will continue to make you known in order that the love you have for me may be in them and that I myself may be in them." Now, that's not the easiest passage of scripture to understand, so let's take it a piece at a time and see if we can identify things that are significant for us today.

The first thing that comes to my mind when I read this passage is the confidence that the Lord Jesus had in the little group of disciples who were in the room with Him. This was confidence despite the fact that He had already predicted that they would forsake Him and they would run away when His hour of trial came. But He is absolutely convinced that as He is going to send them into the world, they will come through. We know this because He is already praying for those who will believe in Him as a result of their message.

There's no question about it that the original disciples of the Lord Jesus were very frail, feeble, failing people. But come to think of it, that's the only kind of people there are in the world. And so the Lord Jesus picked people like that and did extraordinary things with them. Always remember that Christianity is just ordinary people doing extraordinary things because of an extraordinary God doing extraordinary things with ordinary people. We can never put the apostles on a plinth, on a marble stand, and say they were quite different. In actual fact, they were not at all different; they were feeble, frail, failing people. But they came through because they knew the risen Christ and they were indwelt by His Holy Spirit, and they had a clear sense of mission.

There are three things in this prayer that identify the one to whom Jesus was praying. You'll notice first of all, in the first verse, He says, "Father, the time has come." In verse 24, He says, "Father, I want those you have given me to be with me." So He addresses His prayer to the Father, and you remember when He taught His disciples to pray, He said they should pray, "Our Father."

When the Bible talks about God as our Father, it is not saying that He is masculine and it is not denying that He is feminine. God is neither masculine nor feminine. This is an analogy. When we think of God as Father, we're talking of the one who is the source of all things, but not an impersonal source of all things. He cares like a father for his children. So He is the caring source of all things, and He is the one to whom we pray. We pray to the caring source of us. He is the one from whom we come; He is the one who deeply cares for us.

Notice in addition to that that the Father is described as the Holy Father in verse 11. "I am coming to you, Holy Father," the Lord Jesus said, "protect these disciples of mine by the power of your name." Remember that the word "holy" means literally separate or distinct or different. When we think of the holiness of God, we're reminded that He is separate from, distinct from, different from all that we are. He is awesomely transcendent. He is utterly awesome. That's the connotation of holy that we need to bear in mind.

When we pray to the Father, the caring source of our being, and recognize that He is awesome, we come before Him humbly and reverently. Notice thirdly that He is described as the righteous Father in verse 25. "Righteous Father," Jesus said, "though the world does not know you, I know you." When we think in terms of God being righteous, what it means is that He is intrinsically right in all that He is, in all that He says, in all that He does, which means that there is something that we can build our lives upon.

But when we think in terms of the righteousness of God, we automatically have to look at our own lives and we begin to see our unrighteousness. Notice secondly, the ones for whom the Lord Jesus prayed. Notice their distinctives first of all. In verse 9, the Lord Jesus, praying for the group of disciples in the room with Him and then for those who would come as a result of their witness, said, "I pray for them. I am not praying for the world, but for those you have given me, for they are yours."

There are two distinctives here about the people for whom Jesus was praying. They were people who did not belong to the world. Remember we define the world as being secular society. By secular society, we mean society that has the mindset that basically this world and all that is in it is all that really matters. Some people adopt that attitude simply because they're basically indifferent to God. It isn't that they're antagonistic to Him; it's just that God doesn't figure in their thinking at all. He is basically and fundamentally an irrelevance.

When you become a believer, God touches your life and He draws you out of that mindset. He leaves you in the environment, but He changes your mindset so that you are now still in the secular world, but you're not of it because you're marching to a different drummer. You belong to Him. And that is the second distinctive of which the Lord speaks here. He says, "I pray for them. I'm not praying for the world, but for those you have given me, for they are yours."

In other words, when I become a believer, I become a believer because God took an initiative. No man comes to the Father except the Father draws him; that is a clear statement of scripture. Notice also the description that we have of them in this passage of scripture. As we've already seen, Jesus prays for those who will believe in Him through the message of the apostles. This cannot be stressed enough. True believers are those who believe in Christ through the message of the apostles.

Guest (Male): Don't go anywhere. There's more life-giving truth from the Briscoes headed your way. Tellingthetruth.org and the *Telling the Truth* app are great resources to help you grow in your spiritual life. Packed with videos like "Ask the Briscoes," articles from Stuart and Jill, and encouraging audio teaching content, you'll find a treasure trove of resources to encourage you and others in your faith.

While you're there, you can also request this month's featured resource when you give a gift to help more people around the world experience life in Christ. So visit us online or download the app today. We look forward to connecting with you. Let's go back to Stuart now for more about his message on the comfort we find in each other on today's *Telling the Truth*.

Stuart Briscoe: In the beginning of Acts chapter 2, Peter, the apostle, stands up and preaches the first truly apostolic message. The conclusion of it is simply this: God has made this Jesus, who was crucified, Lord and Christ. And that is the crux of the apostles' message. That is the basis upon which the Christian church is built. The first creed of the Christian church was Jesus Christ is Lord. That was it. As the years went by, all kinds of other error and heresy came in, but fundamentally the creed of the Christian church is Jesus Christ is Lord.

Therefore, to believe in Christ according to the apostles' message is to understand that Jesus is the Christ, the sent one, with a specific message of salvation, and He is Lord. We believe in Him as we receive His offer of salvation by faith and we bow the knee to His lordship and live in obedience to Him. You must repent. You must change your mind about the Savior. You must change your mind about the Lord. You must turn through 180 degrees and you must submit yourselves to Him and show that you've done so by being baptized in His name, and you will receive the Holy Spirit.

What we need to do then is to ask ourselves, "Do we truly belong to Christ?" We can answer that question by saying, "Am I different from the world? Do I know that I've been given to Christ and belong to Him? Do I know that I believed into Christ according to the apostolic message?" Notice another thing here about these disciples. He not only says that they believe in me through the apostolic message, He then says in verse 22 that they have been given the glory.

Now, this is a difficult expression. "I have given them the glory you gave me that they may be one as we are one, I in them and you in me." The expression "I in them and you in me," all very simple little words, gives us the key to the glory He's talking about. When the Lord Jesus lived on earth, He said quite frankly, "I can of my own self do nothing. The Father who dwells in me, He does the work." Then He said, "As I live by the Father, so you are to live by me."

If the Lord Jesus of Himself could do nothing apart from the Father dwelling in Him, we ourselves can do nothing apart from Christ dwelling in us. So the glory of the believer is, among other things, that we have received the life of the risen Christ by His Holy Spirit. He lives in us, and in the same way that the Father lived in Jesus and worked through Him, so Jesus risen from the dead lives in us to work through us. And this is our glory.

Notice the second aspect of the glory that has been given to us. In the very beginning of the prayer, Jesus prayed, "Father, the hour has come. Glorify your son." He's saying that He's given the glory to us that was given to Him. What was the glory that was going to be given to Jesus now that the hour has come? You'll remember that on numerous occasions the people tried to murder Jesus, but we're told they weren't able to do it, for His hour had not yet come.

There was going to be a right time for Jesus to die in a right manner in a right place. You remember what Jesus said? He said, "If you're going to be my disciple, you must take up your cross too." Let me suggest to you that the glory that has been given to true followers of Jesus is, number one, that Jesus Christ lives in them and, number two, they have taken up their cross and they're prepared to die to themselves and live for Him. These are the people for whom Jesus prayed.

The third distinctive of them we find in verse 26, where we are told that Jesus has made the Father known to the disciples and will continue to make the Father known to them. There's a sense in which when we become true believers, we come to know God. We come to experience Him in our lives. But remember, when we come to know Him, that isn't the end; that is simply the beginning. We come to know Him in order that we might grow in grace and in the knowledge of our Lord and Savior Jesus Christ. True believers know the Lord and are growing in their knowledge of Him.

Put all that together and you've got a picture of the ones for whom Jesus prayed. But now thirdly, the things for which He prayed. There are two things basically in this prayer that He's concerned about. The first one is He prays that these believers who have just been described for us may be one. So at least four times in this brief prayer, there is a prayer about the unity of believers.

The second concern that He has is contained in verse 24, where He prays that His disciples one day would be with Him and see His glory. One prayer has to do with the disciples still on earth, and the other prayer has to do with disciples in heaven in glory for all eternity. We're all familiar, I assume, with the prayer of the Lord Jesus that all believers may be one. But I suppose that all of us whenever we read that are troubled in our spirits.

When we look at the way that believers behave and the efforts that are being made to get the church of Jesus Christ unified, it seems that we take one step forward and two steps back. Is this prayer of Jesus simply empty praying? Is it something that was not answered? No, I don't believe it is. In actual fact, I believe that the prayer of Jesus is being and will be answered.

Let me point out to you from this passage the way in which the prayer that believers may be one is being answered today. Let me identify the reality of the unity that is going on in the world at this present time. There is a very definite unity between believers in the Lord Jesus. The result of this oneness, Jesus explains, will be that people will begin to understand that we are a unique society. They would recognize the love of God is at work within us, and they would be drawn to us.

Any healthy church that is demonstrating the unity in the Lord Jesus will be attractive to a broken, fractured world. People coming from broken, fractured lives and broken, fractured families and broken, fractured marriages will find in this community of believers comfort for their troubled souls. Our responsibility, therefore, is not only to project this unity but to protect it too.

The Lord Jesus shows that we must protect this unity against any worldly attitudes that come into the church and against the evil one who will pounce on any area of disagreement and exacerbate it and produce division. We must project the unity and we must protect the unity. The apostle Paul, writing to the Ephesians, said that we were to make every effort to maintain the unity of the Spirit in the bond of peace.

To the extent that we do that, we will provide people who need it a place of comfort and acceptance, and we will project to a watching world something that is unique and different, and they'll be attracted to us. And that was what Jesus prayed for.

Guest (Male): Stuart, tell us about a time where you trusted that God is the source of all things and saw Him provide.

Stuart Briscoe: There's an interesting verse of scripture, and you may wonder what on earth this verse has to do with that question about God being the source of all things. The verse that I have in mind speaks of God as follows: it says, "God is the one in whose hand your breath is." Have you ever thought of God like that? God is the one in whose hand your breath is.

That conjures up a visual in my mind, and it is of my windpipe resting gently in the hand of God between His divine thumb and forefinger, and He is gently caressing my windpipe. All I know is that all He has to do at any given moment is exert the slightest of pressure on my windpipe and that is the end of Stuart Briscoe on earth.

I believe that life is that precarious. All right, now He doesn't do it. In actual fact, what He does, He continues to give me the air I breathe, He continues to give me the gift of life, and I enjoy that every single time I think about it and unconsciously I enjoy it every single moment of my waking hours.

Guest (Male): Stuart, what does it mean to believe in Christ?

Stuart Briscoe: There are three dimensions to believing. The first dimension of believing is what we call cognitive. That means I have listened to information and I have concluded it is true. I believe that something is true. The second dimension is emotive. That means I believe that this is true and it affects me as follows: it moves me deeply, it frightens me to death, it gives me a desire to experience it, it repels me. That is an emotive belief. It isn't just a case of nodding my head; it is being moved by what I acknowledge in my intellect.

But then there's a third dimension, and that is called evaluative. That means I believe that something is true, it moves me in the following direction, I need to do something about it, and I'm going to evaluate what is the right thing to do and do it. So there are three dimensions to believing, and of course these things apply to believing in Christ: emotive, evaluative, and cognitive.

Guest (Male): Thanks for joining us today here on *Telling the Truth*. We pray today's message has helped you to experience life in all its fullness through Jesus Christ. When life storms suddenly come your way, how do you respond? Do you doubt God's presence, questioning His concern for you? Or do you see storms as part of God's plan for your life and rest assured He cares for you and is in control of all things?

We want to help you trust in God's care and control in all the storms you face by sending you Jill Briscoe's message, "Weathering the Storms of Life," as well as a set of 12 beautifully designed scripture cards to encourage you in troubled times. In "Weathering the Storms of Life," Jill teaches from the gospel of Mark, examining the disciples' experience in a sudden storm to address the issues of suffering and faith, challenging you to examine your belief in God in the midst of trouble.

Her teaching and the scripture cards will encourage you as you discover how you can be sure of God's love for you and His control over every circumstance, no matter how sudden, severe, or unexpected. "Weathering the Storms of Life" and the set of 12 scripture cards are our thanks for your gift to help more people experience life through the teaching and resources of *Telling the Truth*.

So request your copy when you give today. Call 1-800-889-5388. That's 1-800-889-5388, or give online at tellingthetruth.org. Thanks for being here today. Come back again for more biblical truth to help you experience life. Join us next time on *Telling the Truth*.