SPEAKER_00: Alright.
SPEAKER_00: We are going to continue our series in John.
SPEAKER_00: If you have a Bible with you, please open it to John chapter 17.
SPEAKER_00: We're in verses 20 through 26.
SPEAKER_00: If you don't have a Bible with you, we will have the text on the screen.
SPEAKER_00: You've heard this, and you know, they attribute that the prayers of their mom or grandma to the intervention of God in their life.
SPEAKER_00: Well, what if you had a pray in Jesus?
SPEAKER_00: What difference would that make in your life?
SPEAKER_00: I bring that up because in our text today, we're gonna say, we're gonna see that 2,000 years ago, before he went to the cross, Jesus prayed for us.
SPEAKER_00: Hear the word of God from John chapter 17, verses 20 through 26.
SPEAKER_00: He says, I do not ask for these only, but also for those who will believe in me through their word.
SPEAKER_00: That's us, that they may all be one, just as you, Father, are in me, and I in you, that they also may be in us, so that the world may believe that you have sent me.
SPEAKER_00: The glory that you have given me, I have given to them, that they may be one, even as we are one.
SPEAKER_00: I in them, and you in me, that they may become perfectly one, so that the world may know that you sent me, and loved them even as you loved me.
SPEAKER_00: Father, I desire that they also whom you have given me may be with me where I am, to see my glory that you have given me, because you loved me before the foundation of the world.
SPEAKER_00: A righteous Father, even though the world does not know you, I know you, and these know that you have sent me.
SPEAKER_00: I made known to them your name, and I will continue to make it known, that the love with which you have loved me may be in them, and I in them.
SPEAKER_00: Please pray with me.
SPEAKER_00: God, that we would understand what it is that you're praying for us, that we could lean in to this grace given us by your prayer thousands of years ago, that even now you plead for us.
SPEAKER_00: Be with us now as we look closely at your word.
SPEAKER_00: May it transform what you intend to transform and shape us into a people for your name.
SPEAKER_00: Amen.
SPEAKER_00: Uh one time I uh believe it or not did a backpacking trip around Ireland.
SPEAKER_00: I know, me backpacking, um, I did.
SPEAKER_00: Uh, and one of the places I visited was Northern Ireland, which is, if you didn't know, a different country than Ireland, I know.
SPEAKER_00: It's controversial.
SPEAKER_00: Uh one of the places I went was the second largest city there, a place that the very name of it is controversial.
SPEAKER_00: Uh, I'll call it just because I have to call it something Derry, although some will insist it is called Londonderry.
SPEAKER_00: Okay, it is it is uh famously the site of Bloody Sunday.
SPEAKER_00: If you know the U2 song Sunday, Bloody Sunday, that's what they're singing about.
SPEAKER_00: And as you can tell, they're very emotional about it because some emotional things happened there.
SPEAKER_00: Now, this was one of the main sites of what's called the troubles in Northern Ireland.
SPEAKER_00: And in fact, there has been uh back in the 17th century, there was a battle fought there.
SPEAKER_00: Catholic invading forces were were trying to get into the Protestant city of Derry, and they shut the doors.
SPEAKER_00: Right?
SPEAKER_00: So the Catholics were outside, the Protestants were inside, and interestingly, it's still like that right now.
SPEAKER_00: I I stood on the walls.
SPEAKER_00: It's one of those old walled cities where you could stand on the walls, they're so wide.
SPEAKER_00: And when you look down at what's called the Bog Side, uh, which is the Catholic Republican neighborhood, uh, you see signs that are, it says they have a huge sign that's really visible from the walls.
SPEAKER_00: It says, you're now entering free dairy.
SPEAKER_00: And they had murals.
SPEAKER_00: Like I was like, hey, you know, Bloody Sunday was, you know, years and years ago.
SPEAKER_00: Surely they're not, surely it's chill there now.
SPEAKER_00: Well, they had pictures up of the Battle of the Bogside, uh, murals that they had painted.
SPEAKER_00: They're everywhere, right?
SPEAKER_00: You is it up behind me right now?
SPEAKER_00: Yeah, there we go.
SPEAKER_00: That's what you're looking at.
SPEAKER_00: They're not over it, are they?
SPEAKER_00: It's still there currently.
SPEAKER_00: And if you were wondering if it was all on one side, well, inside the city is Protestant, and they have these huge signs that say, you know, we're still under siege, no surrender, and the the curbs are painted red, white, and blue.
SPEAKER_00: Right?
SPEAKER_00: So as I stood there, this division was stark and obvious.
SPEAKER_00: Now the thing is, is uh if you were familiar uh with the troubles, they called the one side Catholic, the other Protestant.
SPEAKER_00: It was a political fight, not a theological one.
SPEAKER_00: But you know what?
SPEAKER_00: There was a lot of sincere Christians on both sides, and their faith in Christ was not bringing them together.
SPEAKER_00: In fact, in many ways, the Christian faith was used to turn up the heat on this on this division and antipathy.
SPEAKER_00: I don't know about you, but when I see God's people divided one against the other, it it does, I find it to be the most discouraging thing.
SPEAKER_00: Right?
SPEAKER_00: Like we all know there's evil and suffering in the world, that's the nature of the fall.
SPEAKER_00: But when people who are both in Christ are at each other like that, it makes it makes us so discouraged.
SPEAKER_00: We just say, can this thing be real?
SPEAKER_00: Right?
SPEAKER_00: Because the thing is, is right along with sin comes division.
SPEAKER_00: When we look at the Bible, the story of the Bible, when when humanity falls, the first thing we see is what?
SPEAKER_00: That the man and the woman, the first two human beings, divide against each other.
SPEAKER_00: They start blaming each other.
SPEAKER_00: God's like, what did you do?
SPEAKER_00: And the man's like, shoot at it.
SPEAKER_00: And then and then he's like, what did you do?
SPEAKER_00: And the woman's like, the snake did it.
SPEAKER_00: And right, like like the the blame, the blame is going around.
SPEAKER_00: And then, you know, there is this announcement of the consequences that they are going to try and dominate one another, they're gonna be divided against each other, and if that's not enough, uh if that's not driven home enough in that chapter, the very next chapter is Cain and Abel.
SPEAKER_00: Along with sin comes division, it's in its very nature to pit people against one another.
SPEAKER_00: And when we see it in the church, when we see God's people divided against one another, it is incredibly distressing and discouraging, and perhaps like nothing else, it makes people doubt.
SPEAKER_00: You know, it's just if if the if the spirit dwells in all these people, why are we so divided?
SPEAKER_00: And it's also it also feels kind of hopeless because, you know, I mean, what's the hope that you could ever unify all the division that exists in the church?
SPEAKER_00: People will point, well, you got all these denominations and all these sub-denominations and all these people who won't even join a denomination.
SPEAKER_00: And like it's all kind of fractured, fractured, fractured.
SPEAKER_00: How do you put together, how do you put back together something that is broken in a million pieces like that?
SPEAKER_00: Jesus prays three times in this short prayer, in this short bit of the prayer.
SPEAKER_00: What does he pray?
SPEAKER_00: Did you notice?
SPEAKER_00: He said that they would be one.
SPEAKER_00: And he's not praying specifically for his current disciples, he prays specifically for his future disciples.
SPEAKER_00: So what's going on?
SPEAKER_00: Did God say no to Jesus' prayer?
SPEAKER_00: Or did he say not yet to Jesus' prayer?
SPEAKER_00: Or, as I'm gonna contend, did he say yes?
SPEAKER_00: Y'all think I'm crazy.
SPEAKER_00: That in reality, as Jesus prayed, we are one.
SPEAKER_00: I'm gonna try and convince you of this for the next little while here.
SPEAKER_00: First of all, we are one like the Trinity is one.
SPEAKER_00: Yes, I said we are one like the Trinity is one.
SPEAKER_00: Look at what he says in verse 21.
SPEAKER_00: He said, What does he pray for us?
SPEAKER_00: That they may all be one, just as you, Father, and you, Father, are in me, and I in you, that they also may be in us, so that the world may believe that you have sent me.
SPEAKER_00: Okay, so what is he saying that the very pattern of the relationship of Father, Son, and Holy Spirit is to be the same as the church's unity.
SPEAKER_00: Okay?
SPEAKER_00: And the first thing we see there is that Father, Son, Holy Spirit, the Trinity is distinct.
SPEAKER_00: They are distinct from one another.
SPEAKER_00: Okay, that that is the pattern that in their unity they are not the same.
SPEAKER_00: The Father did not die on the cross for your sins.
SPEAKER_00: The son did not descend at Pentecost.
SPEAKER_00: Okay, the one true God did in both cases.
SPEAKER_00: Let the mind boggle.
SPEAKER_00: If it hurts, you're doing it right.
SPEAKER_00: Okay.
SPEAKER_00: But in the unity of God Himself, there is also distinction.
SPEAKER_00: It is not required that that unity means the same.
SPEAKER_00: But also, we see that in that distinction there is unity, that God is united.
SPEAKER_00: When we look at verses 22 and 23, and this is gonna get a little fiddly here, so follow it, follow with me.
SPEAKER_00: He says, the glory that you have given me, I have given to them, that they may be one, even as we are one.
SPEAKER_00: I and them, and you in me, that they may become perfectly one, so that the world may know that you sent me and loved them as you loved me.
SPEAKER_00: Now, you you see that this unity is expressed as not only are the father and son distinct, but that the son is in the father, the father is in the son, right?
SPEAKER_00: And in the same way that we are in God, that is what he says.
SPEAKER_00: I'm that's not me, it's not me, that's Jesus.
SPEAKER_00: And God is in us.
SPEAKER_00: That type of close unity to where you are, you know, I don't even.
SPEAKER_00: There is a theological term that I'm holding off on using.
SPEAKER_00: But this is not something he's praying will happen.
SPEAKER_00: He's praying, this is something that already has happened, and how I know is that he uses what's called a perfect verb.
SPEAKER_00: Okay, when we see the glory that you have given me, I have given them.
SPEAKER_00: What the English is expressing there is a Greek perfect verb.
SPEAKER_00: Here's the difference between a simple past tense and a perfect, and this is important, this is where it gets fiddly.
SPEAKER_00: Okay?
SPEAKER_00: If it just says, I gave them your glory, then that would simply mean at some point in the past the glory was given.
SPEAKER_00: I have given the glory means that it was a past event with ongoing consequences, ongoing permanent consequences.
SPEAKER_00: That's a perfect.
SPEAKER_00: So, for instance, you have been born.
SPEAKER_00: It's something that happened in the past with current ongoing consequences.
SPEAKER_00: Here you are, all born.
SPEAKER_00: Get it?
SPEAKER_00: That's a perfect verb.
SPEAKER_00: It is different from a past tense.
SPEAKER_00: He's praying in the perfect tense.
SPEAKER_00: That the glory has been given, and what is the result of that glory?
SPEAKER_00: He says that they would be one.
SPEAKER_00: Do you notice?
SPEAKER_00: And this is still fiddly, sorry about that.
SPEAKER_00: He says, the glory you have given me, I have given to them that.
SPEAKER_00: So that is a that is a result clause.
SPEAKER_00: The result is they may be one even as we are one.
SPEAKER_00: Jesus is not hoping for something future at that moment, he is praying something present.
SPEAKER_00: So we are one like the Trinity.
SPEAKER_00: We are distinct and united.
SPEAKER_00: Why is this so important?
SPEAKER_00: That we are distinct and united.
SPEAKER_00: It's because a lot of the time what we call division is really just distinction.
SPEAKER_00: It is not required that that God's children agree on all things for them to be in unity.
SPEAKER_00: Correct?
SPEAKER_00: We don't even have that in this room, much less on planet Earth and throughout history.
SPEAKER_00: There can be distinction.
SPEAKER_00: The Father is not the Son, the Son is not the Spirit, right?
SPEAKER_00: They are distinct.
SPEAKER_00: It also doesn't mean that we have to become one giant institutional monolith across the planet.
SPEAKER_00: That's not required for us to be one.
SPEAKER_00: We are one like the Trinity.
SPEAKER_00: We're distinct, yet we are united.
SPEAKER_00: We are in Christ, Christ in us, just like every other believer on planet Earth.
SPEAKER_00: Therefore, unity is a reality.
SPEAKER_00: We are united, we are one like the Trinity.
SPEAKER_00: Think about it like this.
SPEAKER_00: Because a lot of us are like, yeah, but I've seen Christians hate each other's guts.
SPEAKER_00: Okay, fair enough.
SPEAKER_00: That is true.
SPEAKER_00: Let's pretend, and this I hope this is not a self-fulfilling prophecy.
SPEAKER_00: Let's say when my kids get to marrying, one of my kids is gonna marry someone whose dad I don't like and who doesn't like me.
SPEAKER_00: In fact, we don't see eye to eye on anything.
SPEAKER_00: Okay?
SPEAKER_00: He's meaning he's wrong.
SPEAKER_00: And and he feels the same way about me.
SPEAKER_00: And in fact, we don't get along to the point where we say, I don't care what anyone says, we're not family.
SPEAKER_00: We both say it to each other.
SPEAKER_00: I I will never acknowledge you as family.
SPEAKER_00: But our kids get married.
SPEAKER_00: Are we family?
SPEAKER_00: You better believe it.
SPEAKER_00: The the unity is a reality even if we don't acknowledge it.
SPEAKER_00: We are one.
SPEAKER_00: Now that brings up something uncomfortable for some of us.
SPEAKER_00: Because you'll say, perhaps, some of you, does that mean I am united to cultural enemies?
SPEAKER_00: And I'm not making, I'm not minimizing this.
SPEAKER_00: Okay?
SPEAKER_00: Like people who from history or on planet earth right now who might hate you by category.
SPEAKER_00: The answer is yes.
SPEAKER_00: There are Hutus, spiritually united with Tutsis.
SPEAKER_00: There are Kurds spiritually united with Turks.
SPEAKER_00: There are Filipinos culturally united with Spanish.
SPEAKER_00: I am spiritually united with anti-Semites.
SPEAKER_00: I will say this also.
SPEAKER_00: That those who entered glory, right, like people back in the day who did not like Jews, would not like this whole situation of me preaching to you at all, they have now repented.
SPEAKER_00: They are no longer anti-Semites and you know, people who were engaged in the colonial project that that caused such misery in the world.
SPEAKER_00: They have fully repented.
SPEAKER_00: And guess what?
SPEAKER_00: You and I, when we get to glory, are gonna see our blind spots and repent too.
SPEAKER_00: Because, let's remember, the only reason any of us are here is by grace.
SPEAKER_00: And that does mean, yes, we are spiritually united to other sinners.
SPEAKER_00: So what, in what way are we united?
SPEAKER_00: So we're united as the Trinity is united.
SPEAKER_00: We are one as the as the Trinity, but we are also one by God's self-revelation.
SPEAKER_00: We see that that in each time Jesus says that they would be one, there's something that causes it.
SPEAKER_00: And we see in verse 22 that that the giving of God's glory is going to cause it.
SPEAKER_00: He says in verse 22, the glory that you have given me, I have given to them, that they may be one even as we are one.
SPEAKER_00: I and them, you and me, that they may become perfectly one, so that the world may know that you sent me and loved them even as you loved me.
SPEAKER_00: So, where do we see God's self-revelation here?
SPEAKER_00: We see it in the word glory.
SPEAKER_00: When Jesus is saying, You have given your glory to me, glory refers to the manifestation of God's presence.
SPEAKER_00: When God descended on Mount Sinai, it was called his glory.
SPEAKER_00: Okay, when people are saying, show me your glory, it means show me who God is.
SPEAKER_00: Reveal to me God.
SPEAKER_00: And so, first off, Jesus is saying his people receive God's self-revelation in him.
SPEAKER_00: Okay, so when we receive Jesus as the revelation of God, we're united by that.
SPEAKER_00: And also, and you guys are gonna think I'm crazy again, maybe this is a little crazy sermon, but I trust, trust me, I didn't come up with this.
SPEAKER_00: This is just what he's saying.
SPEAKER_00: We are God's self-revelation.
SPEAKER_00: Is it hot in here?
SPEAKER_00: No.
SPEAKER_00: Look at what he says.
SPEAKER_00: She really doesn't like this term.
SPEAKER_00: He says, the glory that you have given me, I have what?
SPEAKER_00: Given to them that they may be one, even as we are one.
SPEAKER_00: So just as God manifested his presence in Jesus, so now Jesus gives that same glory, right?
SPEAKER_00: God gave the glory to Jesus.
SPEAKER_00: Jesus gives the glory to us.
SPEAKER_00: We receive God's self-revelation, and we are God's self-revelation.
SPEAKER_00: The world's primary problem, where all other, where all misery flows from, is that we're cut off from God.
SPEAKER_00: It's that the world does not know God, and also left to our own devices, we can't know God.
SPEAKER_00: We can't.
SPEAKER_00: You would never if if if take away the whole story of Jesus, take away the whole story of the Bible, take away the Bible itself and everything else.
SPEAKER_00: What do we know about God?
SPEAKER_00: The answer is nothing at all.
SPEAKER_00: God is unknowable in that sense because He's there's a chasm between us we cannot cross.
SPEAKER_00: But God provides the solution.
SPEAKER_00: You know what that is?
SPEAKER_00: His own self-revelation.
SPEAKER_00: Of course, through what he did in the Old Testament, but the high point, the fullness of that is Jesus himself.
SPEAKER_00: God became flesh and dwelt among us.
SPEAKER_00: Jesus is God's self-disclosure, and we receive God's revelation.
SPEAKER_00: Look, it is anyone who wants to say where is division in the church is going to point to the teaching of the church.
SPEAKER_00: We disagree on all sorts of things.
SPEAKER_00: That's true, but also it's not.
SPEAKER_00: And every Christian church on planet Earth throughout history holds to that.
SPEAKER_00: So yeah, we're divided at the margins.
SPEAKER_00: We are, there is massive agreement in the center, in the essentials.
SPEAKER_00: Okay?
SPEAKER_00: The Roman Catholics, the Eastern Orthodox, the Protestants all subscribe to those statements of faith.
SPEAKER_00: So still, to this day, throughout thousands of years, there is a remarkable amount of unity about God's self-revelation.
SPEAKER_00: Now, what about this?
SPEAKER_00: We are God's self-revelation.
SPEAKER_00: What does that mean?
SPEAKER_00: In uh in Laguna Beach, uh California, nice place if you ever get to go there, um, they have something called the pageant of the masters.
SPEAKER_00: Anyone ever heard of this?
SPEAKER_00: It's been going on for like 90 some odd years.
SPEAKER_00: It's really cool.
SPEAKER_00: I could never afford to go, but I understand a lot of my friends were were in it.
SPEAKER_00: Do you know what the pageant of the masters?
SPEAKER_00: No?
SPEAKER_00: No one's ever heard of this?
SPEAKER_00: Oh, I got to introduce you to something so cool.
SPEAKER_00: Here's what it is.
SPEAKER_00: And obviously these people have time on their hands, but every summer, as part of the arts festival in Laguna, they have the Pageant of the Masters, which is they take great works of art, well-known works of art, and they recreate them on stage with live human beings as a stage performance, and it it kind of grows, and then when they're when they're kind of done getting into place, they have recreated the original.
SPEAKER_00: I have a picture here for you of it.
SPEAKER_00: So this is a one of these is a painting by a guy named.
SPEAKER_00: James Tissot.
SPEAKER_00: It's called Too Early.
SPEAKER_00: Can you all see it?
SPEAKER_00: It's pretty good.
SPEAKER_01: Yeah.
SPEAKER_00: You can kind of see that.
SPEAKER_00: And the other is a photograph of the pageant of the masters.
SPEAKER_00: I told you they have time on their hands.
SPEAKER_00: They really know how to do this.
SPEAKER_00: They're a hundred years deep on this.
SPEAKER_00: They're good.
SPEAKER_00: Okay.
SPEAKER_00: So if you look at one, if it's the painting, I don't know which is which, honestly.
SPEAKER_00: You are seeing the painting.
SPEAKER_00: But if you go to the pageant of the masters and you've never seen the painting, right, in one sense, you're not seeing the painting, but in another sense, you are.
SPEAKER_00: Right?
SPEAKER_00: It is a faithful and accurate representation.
SPEAKER_00: If you've seen the pageant of the masters, you know the painting, don't you?
SPEAKER_00: Is this making sense as much as it makes sense to me?
SPEAKER_00: Okay, great.
SPEAKER_00: Glad for that.
SPEAKER_00: We are God's self-revelation.
SPEAKER_00: We are the body of Christ.
SPEAKER_00: We do it imperfectly.
SPEAKER_00: We could be a lot better.
SPEAKER_00: But the way that people have come to the knowledge of God throughout history over the last couple thousand years has always been through the church, primarily.
unknown: Okay?
SPEAKER_00: So we are united just as these folks are united, right?
SPEAKER_00: It takes all of them to make this picture, to represent this picture and recreate it and be it, correct?
SPEAKER_00: In the same way, it takes all of God's people to be God's self-revelation, as Jesus says.
SPEAKER_00: But also, we are united in that we are going somewhere together.
SPEAKER_00: We are united in, and I've maybe you're starting to learn this word.
SPEAKER_00: We are one in telos.
SPEAKER_00: What is telos?
SPEAKER_00: Telos is your is is a word that wraps together destination and purpose.
SPEAKER_00: Okay?
SPEAKER_00: Destination and purpose.
SPEAKER_00: It's like if you go to the Broncos, uh, when you're on your way to a Broncos game, I prefer the bike path because you don't have to deal with parking.
SPEAKER_00: So when you're on your way to the Broncos game, there's other people on their way to the Broncos game, and you know because we're all wearing the same ugly orange color.
SPEAKER_00: And we're all going there for the same reason.
SPEAKER_00: With the same purpose in mind.
SPEAKER_00: Because we know that when the no-fly zone knocks down a pass, you have to go incomplete.
SPEAKER_00: And if there's a Raiders fan there, you have to spill their beer and make it look like an accident.
SPEAKER_00: We're all on the same page.
SPEAKER_00: We know we know where we're going.
SPEAKER_00: We know what we're doing when we get there.
SPEAKER_00: Right?
SPEAKER_00: We are united in this.
SPEAKER_00: Do you guys feel that same bond when anyone who goes or whatever your your team is that isn't as good?
unknown: Right?
SPEAKER_00: You're you're bound, you see though, you see that orange peek out from a jacket, you're like, yes, let's go.
SPEAKER_00: We are united, we are one in tellos.
SPEAKER_00: So we see here that we have the same destination.
SPEAKER_00: Look at verse 24.
SPEAKER_00: She says, Father, I desire that they also whom you have given me may be with me where I am to see my glory that you have given me because you loved me before the foundation of the world.
SPEAKER_00: He's pointing to the future.
SPEAKER_00: He's saying, In glory, all of his people are with him.
SPEAKER_00: We have the same destination.
SPEAKER_00: We are one in destination.
SPEAKER_00: And then we are we are one in the growing relationship.
SPEAKER_00: He says, O righteous Father, even though the world does not know you, I know you, and these know that you have sent me.
SPEAKER_00: So we share the telos of knowing God as our purpose.
SPEAKER_00: And then we are also loved by the same Savior.
SPEAKER_00: He says, I made known to them your name, and I will continue to make it known, that the love with which you have loved me may be in them, and I in them.
SPEAKER_00: And all of this he is placing as, you know, in our in our in in when when redemption is complete.
SPEAKER_00: So we are one in Kaos, the destination, relationship, and the love of the Savior.
SPEAKER_00: I no one has said this better than C.S.
SPEAKER_00: Lewis in his essay Wade of Glory.
SPEAKER_00: He says this, there are no ordinary people.
SPEAKER_00: You have never talked to a mere mortal.
SPEAKER_00: Nations, cultures, arts, civilization, these are mortal.
SPEAKER_00: Their life is to ours as the life of a gnat.
SPEAKER_00: But it is immortals whom we joke with, work with, marry, snub, and exploit.
SPEAKER_00: Immortal horrors are everlasting splendors.
SPEAKER_00: He says it well.
SPEAKER_00: One of the things, one of the reasons that we are one, is that we are one in Talos.
SPEAKER_00: So we are one.
SPEAKER_00: We are one like the Trinity.
SPEAKER_00: We are one by God's self-revelation, and we are one in Talos.
SPEAKER_00: The thing is, even though that's true, we don't act like it is.
SPEAKER_00: That's the actual problem.
SPEAKER_00: When we we hurry away to distance ourselves from other people in Christ, when they sort of fall outside what's culturally okay.
SPEAKER_00: Right?
SPEAKER_00: We're quick to say they're not like us.
SPEAKER_00: They're not like us.
SPEAKER_00: That's why there are schisms.
SPEAKER_00: You know, not just, hey, we have we have separate institutions because we're doing different things, but we don't like each other, so let's not worship together.
SPEAKER_00: Uh that's why there, you know, like I've heard of many churches splitting or or there being tribalism or or these opposed parties that are always at each other's throats.
SPEAKER_00: I'm not talking about disagreement.
SPEAKER_00: Again, this doesn't mean you can't disagree, but when there isn't love, when there is no understanding that these are my fellow family members in Christ, we don't behave like it's true.
SPEAKER_00: It's kind of like um I recently showed my older kids The Matrix, um, which you know is part of the duty, it's part of the generation-to-generation duty for Gen X to pass on to Gen Z and beyond uh the best stuff, which I mean Matrix is peak.
SPEAKER_00: And in there's a really key scene in the Matrix when he goes to see the Oracle.
SPEAKER_00: We've all seen The Matrix, right?
SPEAKER_00: So you remember what's actually going on.
SPEAKER_00: I won't spoil it for the youngins who haven't seen it yet.
SPEAKER_00: Alright, so he goes to see the Oracle.
SPEAKER_00: And in the Oracle's kind of front room in this sort of rundown apartment that she lives in, there's this tweaky kid who's dressed as Hare Krishna and has an English accent.
SPEAKER_00: Which I feel like there's a story there worth telling.
SPEAKER_00: I could see a matrix spin-off for that kid.
SPEAKER_00: Because what happened?
SPEAKER_00: How is he in the south side of Chicago wearing that, talking like that?
SPEAKER_00: And where are his parents?
SPEAKER_00: And what did they do to him?
SPEAKER_00: Um, but anyway, this kid is holding up spoons, and he just looks at it and concentrates, and then you see the spoon bend, right?
SPEAKER_00: And Keanu walks up and looks at him, and the kid looks back and he he hands him the spoon.
SPEAKER_00: And he says, Do not try to bend the spoon.
SPEAKER_00: That's impossible.
SPEAKER_00: This is dead on, by the way.
SPEAKER_00: That's impossible.
SPEAKER_00: Instead, only try to realize the truth.
SPEAKER_00: And Keanu says, What truth?
SPEAKER_00: And the kid says, There is no spoon.
SPEAKER_00: Right?
SPEAKER_00: And it kind of like captures in a nutshell the entire point of his character.
SPEAKER_00: He he is trying to learn how to live as though the truth is true.
SPEAKER_00: We need to live like the truth is true.
SPEAKER_00: So do not try to heal all the divisions in the church.
SPEAKER_00: That would be impossible.
SPEAKER_00: Instead, only try to realize the truth.
SPEAKER_00: Now you say, what truth?
SPEAKER_00: Can you?
SPEAKER_00: Someone?
SPEAKER_00: There are no divisions.
SPEAKER_00: We are one.
SPEAKER_00: Right?
SPEAKER_00: That despite all appearances, despite our our our refusal to live as though it's true, the truth is the body of Christ is one.
SPEAKER_00: Just as Jesus prayed all those years ago.
SPEAKER_00: What would it look like for us to live like the truth is true?
SPEAKER_00: Well, it doesn't mean that we all have to agree on everything, correct?
SPEAKER_00: It doesn't mean that we have to merge every single denomination and everything else into one mega institution.
SPEAKER_00: That is not it.
SPEAKER_00: Instead, when we find ourselves about to condemn a fellow believer, we pray for them instead.
SPEAKER_00: They may be in great error.
SPEAKER_00: They may be doing the wrong thing, granted.
SPEAKER_00: But we pray for them instead of slamming them.
SPEAKER_00: We are slow to believe the worst about one another.
SPEAKER_00: Sometimes really, really quick to jump to conclusions and believe the worst about one another.
SPEAKER_00: It looks like being willing to work together for God's purposes.
SPEAKER_00: I do think that there are a number of issues on planet Earth right now where many, many, many of the people in Christ can come together and work together to address them.
SPEAKER_00: And also, it's to give grace to others like we know we need for ourselves.
SPEAKER_00: That we would treat one another with the same grace that Christ has shown to us.
SPEAKER_00: We are one.
SPEAKER_00: That's the truth.
SPEAKER_00: We need to live like the truth is true.
SPEAKER_00: Please pray with me.
SPEAKER_00: Jesus, that we could live as the truth is true.
SPEAKER_00: That we would take to heart this message, that we would we would try and see and understand that your body is indeed one, despite our insistence that it isn't.
SPEAKER_00: That we would live in the great truth that you prayed for us and provided for us on your cross.
SPEAKER_00: In Jesus' name.
SPEAKER_00: Amen.