Q4, S04 Unity
Quarter 4, Session 4: Prayer for Unity
WILL YOU REMAIN UNITED?
Passage
John 17
Concept
This session falls under Jesus’ tenth question: Will you remain? After preparing his disciples for his departure, Jesus prayed for them. In this prayer, we get a glimpse into Jesus’ heart for his followers. Among other things, Jesus prayed that his followers would be supernaturally united together.
Key Question
What specific things make unity difficult in your context? What specific things would you have to do to increase that unity?
The Plant Tool
Do you see our Plant tool being played out in John 17? With whom? How so?
Prayer for Unity
What makes you feel united to other people? What reasons do you appeal to when you divide from other people? Whether we find ourselves drifting away from other people or we make a conscious decision to separate from them, we all know what it’s like to divide. We all love unity as a concept, but in practice it’s difficult to maintain. The easiest form of unity is to simply stick with the people who are the most like us. It’s easy to stay connected to people who benefit us, people we like being around, and people who like being around us. What’s much more difficult, however, is to stay united with people who are different than us.
While the easier form of unity is great when it comes, Jesus calls us to the difficult form of unity as well. But this unity is not just one thing on a list that Jesus wants for us. When Jesus gave his disciples instructions about what they should do after his departure, he prayed they would all be united. This is central to what Jesus was calling them to. Jesus’ desire was not to have a bunch of individualized followers scattered across the globe, but to have followers who were committed to him and to one another.
Every time we feel the frictions of relationship, every time we find ourselves drifting away or tempted to divide, we need to come back to Jesus’ prayer for his disciples.
1. Read John 17. Right off the bat, what strikes you about this passage? What do you find interesting or challenging or confusing?
The Goal Is Relationship with God
Jesus begins this prayer by asking the Father to glorify him. Though Jesus has been with his disciples for a few years by this point, the time has come for him to be glorified. In this moment of glory—in which Jesus is going to die on our behalf and raise to new life—he is going to be seen for who he truly is. It’s going to reveal the true weightiness of Jesus (the word for “glory” gives the idea of “heaviness, weightiness”). In other words, the world will now be shown something about Jesus that has always been true, but that they have not yet been able to see.
In speaking of this glorification, Jesus says that he offers eternal life. And he says that eternal life is to know the Father. Notice how relationally focused this is. When two people are getting married, the prize is the relationship itself. It’s not about marriage in general, it’s about the relationship. It’s about the other person. The prize is not the marriage certificate, it’s the other person. We have a tendency to think that eternal life is the point, that it’s the goal or prize. But this is essential: God is the goal. He is the prize. He is the good news. When Jesus is offering eternal life, he is offering a relationship with God. That’s what eternal life is all about. It’s not about immortality with God thrown in as an added benefit. God is the gospel.
2. Do you truly believe that your goal is a relationship with God himself? If so, what are you doing now to foster that relationship?
Staying Close to God’s Heart
After praying about his own moment of glory, Jesus begins to pray for his followers. As he prays for them, we get a unique glimpse into Jesus’ heart for us. Here we will see what he truly wants for us. One of the first things he says in praying for the disciples is that they have kept the Father’s words. This is an important definition of what it means to be a follower of Jesus.
The entire time Jesus was on earth, he was revealing God to us. As he walked around and taught and healed and prayed and interacted with people, he was showing us the heart of the Father. So in saying that the disciples have kept God’s word, Jesus does not mean they’ve been morally perfect. Remember that the Pharisees were the ones who were preoccupied with keeping the letter of the law. What Jesus is getting at is that the disciples were the ones who stayed close to the heart of Jesus. We don’t see the disciples strictly trying to follow the Old Testament law, but we do see them walking closely with Jesus and thus absorbing the heart of God.
Jesus is praying that we would stay close to him, as those who keep his word in the sense of remaining close to his heart and purpose and manner of being. In this same connection, Jesus prays that his followers would be sanctified. This is a constant process of transformation. We’ll always need it. That process will continue. So Jesus prays that his followers would be constantly renewed, constantly transformed, constantly brought back to the heart of Jesus.
Jesus also says that as he was sent into the world, so he is sending his disciples into the world. This is a big statement, because it implies that we will be like Jesus in the world. Think back to our tool of the three circles. Being like Jesus means embodying his words, works, and ways. A law focused approach would mean emphasizing the words or doctrines of Jesus. Obviously, this is important. But staying close to the heart of God—being sent out into the world to embody Jesus—means bringing Jesus’ teaching together with his works of compassion and his ways of loving care for others. Only when we bring all three things together will be fulfilling Jesus’ statement that his disciples have kept God’s word.
3. Do you see a distinction between perfectly keeping the law versus keeping God’s word (in the sense of pursuing God’s heart)? Explain.
4. Do have any examples of going astray through following the law rather than God’s heart? What’s the difference here and why is it important?
True Unity
The end of Jesus’ prayer is remarkable because the one thing he is asking the Father for is that we be “one.” He is praying for unity. And he is talking about unity to a remarkable extent: in the same way that the Father and Son are united, he prays that we be united.
At the core, it’s hard for us to stay together. We have a tendency to split apart. To divide from one another. To be polarized. Outraged. Distancing ourselves. This is true of the culture we live in, but it’s just as true within the church. Unity is difficult, division is the status quo. Jesus asks God for our unity because it won’t come naturally.
Being united is about being part of the family. In our physical families, we don’t choose our siblings or our parents. There are real differences between us. We don’t all like to do the same things, eat the same things, or think the same way. But we are united in our families because we are identified together. There is a deeper bond than common interests and thoughts. So it should be with the family of God. And yet we tend to divide when our interests are not shared and when our beliefs differ, even in relatively minor areas.
The last thing Jesus prayed for us is that we be united, held together as a family. Looking at the current state of Christianity, it seems we have not valued Jesus’ concern here. Instead, we have tended to stick closely with the people we like and to distance ourselves from the people who are different. But that’s not Jesus’ vision for his church. We don’t get to choose our family, we’re born into it. It’s not about finding people whose preferences match our own, it’s about living in love with the family we have.
Much of that unity ties back to Jesus’ earlier statements about us being sent into the world. It’s when we pursue our own comfort and happiness that we get the most troubled by differences. We argue when we focus on trivial things. But when we pursue a common mission, it brings us closer. Fighting side by side keeps us from fighting face to face. What binds us together is recognizing that we have a common need (for Jesus) and a common purpose (of offering the healing and life of Jesus to the world around us). So being united requires humility as we recognize our need and together cling to Jesus and pursue the mission he left for us. We can only be united insofar as we pursue life in Jesus and then work together to help others find life in him as well. This, in essence, is Jesus’ final prayer for his followers.
5. What specific factors make unity difficult today? Should these factors be overcome, and if so, how?
6. What practical, perhaps painful, steps would you have to take to increase unity with the Christians God has placed in your life?
7. Spend some time in prayer. Ask God to increase your love for him and the people around you. Pray that he would give you the grace to pursue true unity.
Key Question
What specific things make unity difficult in your context? What specific things would you have to do to increase that unity?