Last Words First Concerns

April 13, 1995

John 17: 1 - 11

"Last words" are important to us. When someone leaves for a day they say "Don't forget to mail that letter . . ." When a son or daughter leaves to go to school away from home there are tears and we say "Don't forget to write every week ..." And when someone is dying we bend low and listen.

Wesley, dying, said "Best of all, God is with us!" Millard Porter, a sainted man I once pastored, said from his bed in a crowded ward "Thirty-Four! Thirty-Four!;" and even though he had a stroke I knew he meant Psalm 34:1 "I will bless the Lord at all times, his praise shall continually be in my mouth!" That episode in the hospital— those final words have meant a lot to me across many years.

But the final words of Jesus are in a completely different, incomparably higher category. Every word that Jesus spoke is important. But as Jesus came to the close of his earthly ministry he summed up the essentials again. The Gospel of John gives four full chapters to the final words of Jesus.

In those final hours Jesus not only spoke of the importance of caring, but demonstrated it. He washed his disciples' feet. And In those final hours Jesus gave a new commandment which actually sums up the Ten Commandments: "A NEW commandment I give you: that you have love one for another! Even as I have loved you— so you are to love one another!" (John 13:34)

But then Jesus closed his final remarks with a prayer. The High Priestly prayer is the Holy of Holies of prayers. A lifetime of study would not exhaust the truth and power it holds. It is a living prayer that Jesus prayed for you and me.

I bring two profound thoughts from that prayer for us to ponder as we come to the Table this evening:

  1. Jesus greatly desires that we understand that God loves us. Jesus prayed first for Himself, that the glory and wonder of his unity with the Father would in fact take place. (See Philippians 2: 5 - 11) But in the same thought, Jesus asked the Father to bring the disciples into that circle of holy unity and love with God the Father, Son, and Holy Spirit. Again, and again Jesus prays that the believers might be in Christ and in God.
  2. Jesus greatly desires that this love be not only vertical— that is between you and God, and me and God— but that this unity might be manifested horizontally— between you and me, and me and you— and you and you, and so forth.

It is as this unity is manifested— not just talked about or theorized— but as the supernatural, gracious, Spirit-breathed love of God is manifested in the church that the world will come to believe that Jesus really is sent from God Almighty to bring salvation to the world.

THIS IS OUR ONLY HOPE OF MAKING A SKEPTICAL WORLD BELIEVE. I don't know when we will believe this, and quit trying to evangelize over top of sin and selfishness and ambition. I don't know why we have relegated "spirit" to the "optional" category and elevated "techniques" and "corporate management" and "worship tricks" to the forefront in so-called "church growth" building.

The fact remains that OUR ONLY HOPE OF MAKING A SKEPTICAL WORLD BELIEVE THAT JESUS IS LORD IS WHEN HIS LOVE IS FIRST IN YOUR LIFE AND MINE.
This was Jesus' final prayer after His final words. How important do you think they are?

INTO THE SACRAMENT: