"One in the Spirit"

Scripture: John 17:6-19
Preacher: Rev. Ross Purdy
Date: May 28, 2006

I love history.   It is my firm belief that if we study history, we will learn about our present and have tools for our future.   The past can teach us a lot about ourselves.   It can instruct us on who we are.

One of my favorite time periods of history was the end of the nineteenth century.   These were the days of revivalist preachers such as Charles Spurgeon who preached to the masses in England and around the world.   At 20 years of age he became the pastor of New Park Street Church.   Within a short time the church grew and he was soon preaching to more than 10,000 people on a Sunday morning.  

These were the days of Dwight Moody, a man whom the Holy Spirit touched mightily.   Moody preached to tens of thousands of people, pleading with them to give their lives to Christ.   With his song-leader Ira Sankey, Moody saw the conversions of many souls.   His ministry turned the country back again to God.

These were the days of Charles Grandison Finney.   He pleaded with people to give their lives to Jesus Christ.   His revivals stand as a testimony to the great spirit of Evangeliscalism and the Second Great Awakening in our country.

There was another man who was relatively unknown by most.    This man appeared on the scene and tapped into the power that ignited such a fire of evangelism.   This power was prayer.   Because he was a man of prayer, a man who cried out "God, give me souls or I die!" he witnessed at least four people committing their lives to Christ every single day.   His ministry of prayer changed societies around the world.   In fact, his nickname was "Praying Hyde".   Although a missionary to India, John Hyde visited many churches around the world.   When he entered churches on a day of worship, he would take the pastor aside and ask to pray with him in his office just prior to the service.   Even though the particular congregation was usually just a handful of people, when the pastor and Praying Hyde would leave the office to begin the morning worship service, the sanctuary would be full - standing room only.

One pastor recounted the experience of Praying Hyde.   He said that John Hyde took him into his pastoral office just prior to the service.   As soon as he entered the room, John Hyde reached for the drawstrings to shut the shades on the window.   Then John Hyde fell to the ground as if a subject in the presence of a mighty king.   Minutes passed and not one word was said.   The pastor later wrote that he could feel the tension in the air all around him.   Finally, after several minutes of excruciating silence, John Hyde cried out, "OH God....", then began to intercede for the morning service and for the lives of those who would be coming in a few moments.   Sure enough, when the pastor, now trembling in the presence of prayer, and John Hyde walked out to the sanctuary, the worship space was filled with people, many of whom never graced the door of a church in their lives.

I love the history of God's Church in the nineteenth century.   I believe the Christian world discovered the power of prayer once again. The fire of God's Spirit was sweeping across places such as New York, Chicago and London and Keswick in the Lake District of the UK.   Later, the Welsh revival and the Azusa Street Revival in Los Angeles would experience the blaze of the Spirit. Preachers who were anything but articulate soon found that when the congregations prayed for their pastor and his message, the world came right to their doorstep.  

When Dwight Moody preached in New York, for instance, beneath the stage were a few hundred pray-ers, praying through the service.   Before long one service would witness 6,000 people coming to hear the Good News of the Gospel.   Many of these people were turned away because they couldn't squeeze in through the doors.    On one occasion, some choose to remain outside in the bitter cold of winter because they knew something mighty was happening and they didn't want to miss it.  

Prayer changes things.   Prayer ignites a fire so intense that all the water on earth, below the seas and above the seas, can't quench it.   Prayer ushers ministry to the forefront of Christian practices and supersedes all talk of trying to find a better committee to form or a new approach to do church.   Prayer is what we do and it forms who we are.

More than all the greatest people in history, Jesus knew the power of prayer.   Everything he did involved prayer.   When His energy level ran out and He grew tired, He prayed. To Him prayer was the very breath of life, as necessary as water for the body or rest for the soul.   When the disciples saw Him doing great things, they didn't ask Him to teach them how to heal or how to become wise.   The very question they asked Him was this: Lord, teach us to pray.   They knew that it was the thing that gave Him power.   It was this connection, this unique relationship to His Father that they wanted.

What is this power of prayer?   What is the power one has who knows how to pray?   Many boast of their spirituality.   Many get involved in churches and other Christian endeavors and receive praises for being people of God.   But a person who can pray is the person who knows the power of God.   You can't know how to pray unless you grow in prayer.   No one is born with a gift of prayer.   It is developed.

The Gospels portray Jesus as a man who grew in stature with God.   Jesus learned how to pray; how to communicate with His Father in Heaven.   Of all the wisdom in the world about God, none is more precious than what we see in our passage when Jesus reveals His heart.   We have revealed to us the very words of Jesus' prayer life.   Here's how Jesus prayed.   This is the prayer at the end of His life:

"Father, I have revealed your name to those whom you gave me out of the world.   They were yours; you gave them to me and they have obeyed your word." (vs. 6)

I have revealed your name, Jesus said.   He wasn't saying that He told them the secret name of God or some hidden code.   He meant that He revealed God through His life.   Jesus, by His life showed us God's exact imprint.   If you've seen Jesus, you've seen God. Jesus is God.   He continues:

I will remain in the world no longer, but they are still in the world...protect them by the power of your name - the name you gave me - so that they may be one as we are one...My prayer is not that you take them out of the world but that you protect them from the evil one.   They are not of the world, even as I am not of it.   Make them holy by the truth; your word is truth.   As you sent me into the world, I have sent them into the world..."

Perhaps there was no more critical time in the life of Jesus.   It was His last few hours on the earth.   He would be betrayed (and He knew it).   He would be abandoned by everyone (and He knew it).   He would be turned over to the religious leaders, then to the cruel and bloodthirsty Romans to be tortured (and He knew it).   He would die upon a cross (and He knew it).   And now He pleads a very precious prayer.   If you look again at the prayer, you will notice that it was not about Him and His needs (as my prayer would have been at that critical time).   It was a beautiful plea for others.   Until the end, Jesus would use His precious moments in prayer for others people.  

That's just like Jesus.   When He ate His last meal, He washed the disciples' feet.   When he prayed in the garden, he prayed for us.   When He walked the Via Dolorosa, the "way of sorrows" on His way to Calvary, He ministered to the crowds.   "Don't weep for me...When He was nailed to the cross, at the very end, He made certain to take care of His mother, asking the Beloved Disciple to take care of her.   Jesus lived for others.   What are we living for? He finished His mission well.

During the Second World War there was a messenger boy in Bristol, England who wanted to do his part for the war effort.   He was not famous or well-known.   He was simply a messenger boy named Derek Bellfall.   Derek wanted to do his part against the hostile world that the enemy had created.   Day after day he stayed close to the Air Raid Precaution Stations.   One day he was sent with a message to another station on his bicycle.   On his way back, after delivering the message, a bomb went off and mortally wounded him.   When they found him he was still conscious.   His last whispering words were: "Messenger Bellfall reporting - I have delivered my message."

This is the prayer Jesus is praying - - "Father, the bomb is about to explode.   I'm reporting - I have delivered my message."

It is a war, this world.   There is much to fight for.   This is memorial weekend, a time when we remember those who gave the ultimate sacrifice; those who sought the greater things than simple comforts which life could have afforded them.   What are we giving in return?   There is a war going on in the world today.   Its name is hatred.   Its name is violence.   Its name is greed.   Its name is evil.   It stands as the antithesis of all that is good.   Are you fighting?   Are you in the community that Jesus left in the world in His name?

Jesus left behind a Band of Brothers - you and you and you and me.   He prayed:

I have given them your word, your message, and the world has hated them, for they are not of the world any more than I am of the world.   Don't take them out of the world.   There's a battle out there.   Just protect them .  

It is clear in Jesus' prayer that we face a hostile world to the message of the Gospel and the truth Kingdom in which we belong.   How will we win?   Prayer.   It is the very thing that has turned the world upside down in history over and over again.   It is the thing that turned the nineteenth century into a world of kingdom revival.   It is the only thing that will take our world, our nation and our city and turn it upside down for the Gospel of Jesus Christ.   We can never strategize enough, plot enough, minister enough or offer enough programs to change anything at all if we don't pray.   Prayer is the simple answer for lighting the fire of spiritual passion and transforming the world.

The war is over.   Jesus won it on the cross.   But, until He returns the enemy, hatred, greed, lust, etc. is still very much active.

For this reason Jesus tells us to love.   The world will know we belong to Him because we love.   We love all people without divisions or justifications.   We love.   And, even harder, we love each other.   There is no weapon strong enough to defeat love.  

He also tells us to have no divisions; to be one.   Jesus' pray continues in the next few verses.   My prayer is not for the disciples alone.   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 in you...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...

We are the band of brothers caught in a battlefield where the losers lose for all eternity.   Are you with me?   The world is dying and needs to see the unity of Christ's Church.   We are one in Spirit against a world that doesn't value the things we value.   We have been commissioned to be holy.   We have been commissioned to be different.   We have been commissioned to be faithful to the end.   That message, that living message of Jesus in His prayer, making God's name known, is what we're here to do.   Jesus expects us to be faithful to it.

The young boy's prayer was "Messenger Bellfall reporting.   I have delivered my message." Then he died.   Jesus' prayer was "Father, I have done what you asked.   I have fulfilled my mission."   Then he died.   How will you report for duty?   What will be your final prayer?  

In the movie Saving Private Ryan , The Army Rangers, led by Captain John Miller, are sent to find a young man, Private Ryan, who is to be called back from the war because his brothers have died and the army can't allow a woman to lose her last son in the same war, the Second World War.   The movie shows how these men face hostile fire in order to find Private Ryan and bring him back.   During the battles, six of the company die in order to save the one.   When Private Ryan reaches Captain John Miller as he lay dying, the Captain turns to Private Ryan and says: "Earn it."

For the rest of his life, James Francis Ryan wonders if his life has honored the sacrifice paid him.   As Mr. Ryan stands at the grave of Captain Miller he considers if he has done honor to Miller and his men.

After all that Jesus Christ has done for us are we living the way we can really live?   Jesus died on the cross to change the world.   His whole life was focused on His mission and He did it.   As we stand before the cross, we don't have to earn anything.   But we do have to live differently.

Christians throughout the centuries have died having shown up for duty and have given their final report.   Are we honoring their sacrifice?   Is their sacrifice inspiring us to do the same?

People throughout our nation's history have given their lives so that we could know freedom and have the privileges we share.   They fulfilled their mission and gave their final report.   Is their sacrifice inspiring us to do the same?

The war has ended but the battles will rage until the day that Jesus returns and takes His proper place as King of kings and Lord of lords.   Then, the effects of war will be no more.   So I will remain faithful with my eyes to the clouds looking for the return of the Son of Man.    At that moment history will end also.

I love history.   History is not always the things of legends.   It is the record of facts.   When history records your name, what will it say?   I hope it records me as a man of prayer who was faithful to the end, walking with a group of people who decided to love and stay together so that the world could see exactly what Jesus' Kingdom was all about.

Until then I will continue to pray...because prayer changes the world, it is what we do and who we are: "Father.   I am reporting for duty.   I will deliver your message."  

What will you do?

Amen.