A lot of people ask, “What is the Christian Church?” A better question is “Who are the Christian Churches?” Throughout history there have always been spiritual lulls, where churches lose their sense of identity and purpose. It’s easy to tell when this happens. The church begins to focus on maintenance. The congregation begins aging out, with few families or children coming. Decisions to follow Christ slow to a trickle. Leaders become increasingly controlling. The average congregant believes they exist to be served, and so they double down demanding their needs, expectations, or preferences be satisfied. The more inward focused a church, the more division increases, and love decreases. Meanwhile, the spiritual plight of the larger community (and world) gets ignored.
But then, inevitably, God’s Holy Spirit begins to stir the church, and people begin to wake-up. Churches rediscover the Father’s Heart for the world, and wake up to the needs of a new generation. [Not unlike what you see in the Jesus Movement movie.] And it doesn’t just happen in one church, or denomination, or place. It generally happens across many religious tribes in many places all at once. This is how the Christian Churches came into existence.
If you have time, google “The Christian Churches and Churches of Christ” and the “Restoration Movement.” The label “Christian Church” was intended to be generic, and invitational. There was never a sense that “Hey, we’re the only Christians.” But there was a sense that “Hey, we’re simply Christians.” And that “We have no Creed but Christ”, and “no book but the Bible.” The goal was to establish some common ground on which we could come together for the sake of Christ’s mission.
This morning we’re in John 17, and it’s here on the eve of His crucifixion and death, that we find Jesus praying most earnestly. He’s praying for the movement of believers he’s unleashed. Jesus never planted a church. He could have. But he did plant a movement of “fishers of men.” The Christian Churches are rightly considered “a movement” of believers. Early on it was the genius of the Christian Churches not to reinvent the wheel, or attempt to create something very new or innovative. Rather, it was to attach itself to something quite ancient. We see in Jesus prayer, in John 17, a kind of “charter”, or “great commission.”
First, We are a Gospel-Entrusted Movement. In John 17:1-5 Jesus begins praying, not so much for Himself (in my view) but about the Gospel. John 17:1-5, “Jesus spoke these things, looked up to heaven, and said, “Father, the hour has come. Glorify your Son so that the Son may glorify you, 2 since you gave him authority over all people, so that he may give eternal life to everyone you have given him. 3 This is eternal life: that they may know you, the only true God, and the one you have sent —Jesus Christ. 4 I have glorified you on the earth by completing the work you gave me to do. 5 Now, Father, glorify me in your presence with that glory I had with you before the world existed.”
So, let’s just keep this simple. First, what is the gospel? Jesus states the gospel quite clearly in John 17:3: “This is eternal life: that they may know you, the only true God, and the one you have sent—Jesus Christ.” This is a refrain of John 3:16-18, “For God loved the world in this way: He gave his one and only Son, so that everyone who believes in him will not perish but have eternal life. 17 For God did not send his Son into the world to condemn the world, but to save the world through him. 18 Anyone who believes in him is not condemned, but anyone who does not believe is already condemned, because he has not believed in the name of the one and only Son of God.”
Second, what did Jesus do with the gospel? Jesus says in John 17:4, “I have glorified you on earth by completing the work you gave me to do.” You gave me authority over people, I finished well. I glorified your name. I made your name, your salvation, known. “This is my son, whom you love, with him I am well pleased. Well done good and faithful servant.”
But now things are at a critical stage. The gospel is being entrusted to Christ’s Disciples, his Apostles. Would the Apostles prove trustworthy? In John 17:6-8 Jesus prays, “I have revealed your name to the people you gave me from the world. They were yours, you gave them to me, and they have kept your word. 7 Now they know that everything you have given me is from you, 8 because I have given them the words you gave me. They have received them and have known for certain that I came from you. They have believed that you sent me.”
But hanging over this text is yet another succession in gospel ministry. As the Apostles began to enter glory, what does the Apostle Paul say in 1 Corinthians 15:1-8? “Now I want to make clear for you, brothers and sisters, the gospel I preached to you, which you received, on which you have taken your stand 2 and by which you are being saved, if you hold to the message I preached to you—unless you believed in vain. 3 For I passed on to you as most important what I also received: that Christ died for our sins according to the Scriptures, 4 that he was buried, that he was raised on the third day according to the Scriptures, 5 and that he appeared to Cephas, then to the Twelve. 6 Then he appeared to over five hundred brothers and sisters at one time; most of them are still alive, but some have fallen asleep. 7 Then he appeared to James, then to all the apostles. 8 Last of all, as to one born at the wrong time, he also appeared to me.”
In 1 Corinthians 4:1-2 the Apostle Paul says, “A person should think of us in this way: as servants of Christ and managers of the mysteries of God. In this regard, it is required that managers be found faithful.” 2 Timothy 2:2-3, “What you have heard from me in the presence of many witnesses, commit to faithful men who will be able to teach others also. Share in suffering as a good soldier of Christ Jesus.” We are a Gospel-Entrusted Movement—But will you carry the ball next? What you prove faithful the Gospel we’ve been entrusted with? Will you complete your work?
Second, We are a Divinely-Protected Movement. In John 17:9-19 Jesus prays, “I pray for them. I am not praying for the world but for those you have given me, because they are yours. 10 Everything I have is yours, and everything you have is mine, and I am glorified in them. 11 I am no longer in the world, but they are in the world, and I am coming to you. Holy Father, protect them by your name that you have given me, so that they may be one as we are one. 12 While I was with them, I was protecting them by your name that you have given me. I guarded them and not one of them is lost, except the son of destruction, so that the Scripture may be fulfilled.
Now we know that each of the Disciples suffered immensely for the gospel, most every Apostle was martyred in some cruel way. All around the world, our brothers and sisters are subject to terrific persecution. I understand Jesus’ prayer to be a prayer for perseverance. In these last days, many are falling away. If you pay much attention, look at all the high-profile ministries that are failing. A number of our Christian Churches are reeling from fallout of pastoral failure. Judas was the first of all Jesus’ followers to fail in an epic way—he was so humiliated he killed himself. Satan doesn’t just prey upon a person’s life—he preys upon very souls of God’s servants. He doesn’t just seek death for God’s servants—he seeks a kind of double death. He didn’t just want to take Job’s life, and that of Job’s family. He wanted to take Job’s soul. He wanted righteous Job to denounce God, turn against God. We are a Divinely-Protected Movement—But will you pray for God’s servants to be faithful? The devil prowls around looking for someone to devour.
Third, We are a Word-Sanctified Movement. In John 17:13-19 Jesus continues, “Now I am coming to you, and I speak these things in the world so that they may have my joy completed in them. 14 I have given them your word. The world hated them because they are not of the world, just as I am not of the world. 15 I am not praying that you take them out of the world but that you protect them from the evil one. 16 They are not of the world, just as I am not of the world. 17 Sanctify them by the truth; your word is truth. 18 As you sent me into the world, I also have sent them into the world. 19 I sanctify myself for them, so that they also may be sanctified by the truth.”
If there is one thing that sustains the movement of Jesus, it is the word of God. There is never greater hope for the movement of Jesus than when his people begin abiding in his words. When I read about the origins of John Wesley, Methodist movement. Or the origins of the Lutheran movement, with Martin Luther putting word of God in hands of ordinary believers. Of the origin of the Presbyterian movement, and many other world changing movements. The Christian Churches and Churches of Christ. The Calvary Jesus People Movement. They came alive and bore much fruit, because they began abiding. But the moment God's people jettison his words, no longer keeping or obeying his commandments, their days are numbered. The Word of God is what gives birth, sustains, sanctified, strengthens, saves the movement of Jesus. We are a Word-Sanctified Movement—But will you abide in the word?
Fourth, We are a Relationally-Driven Movement. In John 17:20-26 Jesus continues, “I pray not only for these, but also for those who believe in me through their word. 21 May they all be one, as you, Father, are in me and I am in you. May they also be in us, so that the world may believe you sent me. 22 I have given them the glory you have given me, so that they may be one as we are one. 23 I am in them and you are in me, so that they may be made completely one, that the world may know you have sent me and have loved them as you have loved me.”
I have this driving conviction—that that first and foremost we need to be helping people do is abide tangibly, relationally, with the Father, Son and Holy Spirit. We can spend so much time and energy getting people to abide in our Church worship services, or small groups, or countless program. But at the end of the day—what matters is—do you know Father? The Son? The Spirit? If eternal life is knowing Father, Son, Spirit… these relationships ought to be our driving concern. If people check all the spiritual boxes we give them, but know not the Father, we have failed them. But it isn’t just love for God… it’s also that love spilling over, causing profound love for another. We are a Relationally-Driven Movement—But will you make love tangible?
Last, We are a World-Changing Movement. In John 17:24-26 Jesus prays, “24 Father, I want those you have given me to be with me where I am, so that they will see my glory, which you have given me because you loved me before the world’s foundation. 25 Righteous Father, the world has not known you. However, I have known you, and they have known that you sent me. 26 I made your name known to them and will continue to make it known, so that the love you have loved me with may be in them and I may be in them.” We are a World-Changing Movement—But will you engage the harvest?