Read: John 17:9-19

Holy Father, keep them in thy name, which thou hast given me, that they may be one, even as we are one. John 17:11b RSV

This is the great prayer Jesus prayed before he went to the Garden of Gethsemane. Jesus is leaving these disciples by means of the garden, the betrayal, the judgment seat of Pilate, and the cross, and to them it appeared that he was abandoning them. They felt frightened, helpless, alone, and unable to understand what was taking place. They could not see that our Lord was merely introducing a higher and a better relationship to them.

Do we not feel this way? God leads us to a place of change and we are frightened by it. We wonder if we are not losing everything we held dear in the past. We scarcely realize that God is but leading us to a higher, a newer, and greater relationship. Like these disciples, we are frightened and fearful.

My concern is how to convey something of the gripping reality of these requests of Jesus, something of the intense practicality of what he is saying. I am so afraid that we will fail to realize that Jesus here is actually praying for us — for what he prays for his disciples he prays for us. Notice the plea that Jesus utters for his disciples. Holy Father, he says, Keep them, (John 17:11b RSV). Later he said, I do not pray that thou shouldst take them out of the world, but that thou shouldst keep them from the evil one. (John 17:15a RSV). This is the theme of his prayer: That they might be protected and kept.

Why? There are so many things that I would pray for if I were in his place. They are the usual things we pray for one another. Why didn’t Jesus pray, Use them, or strengthen them, or teach them, or guide them? This is what we would pray for each other. But when he comes to this place where he is leaving them and he wants to put into one brief phrase all that is his heart’s urging and desire for them, he sums it up in those two little words: keep them.

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Read: John 17:1-3

After Jesus said this, he looked toward heaven and prayed: Father, the hour has come. John 17:1a

The hour has come. With these words Jesus looks forward with obvious anticipation to a time of boundless opportunity that lies before him. Surely these words, the hour has come, mean a good deal more than the phrase we employ when we face the end of life, My time has come. By that we mean we have come to the end of our rope, the end of life. Dr. J. Vernon McGee once told of a man who had been studying through the doctrine of predestination and had become so entranced by the idea of God’s sovereign protection of the believer under any and every circumstance that he said to Dr. McGee, You know, I am so convinced that God is keeping me no matter what I do, that I think that I could step right out into the midst of the busiest traffic at noontime and, if my time had not come, I would be perfectly safe. Dr. McGee said, very characteristically, Well, if you go down and stand in the middle of traffic at noontime, brother, your time has come!

To use a phrase like, my time has come is resignation, but this is not what Jesus does. What he is speaking of here is realization. He is speaking of the time he had been looking forward to all his life. Throughout His ministry, Jesus continually refers to this hour. In the beginning of John we have the story of the first miracle in Cana of Galilee when he turned the water into wine. There his mother came to him and said, Son, they have no wine, and his answer was, Woman, what have I to do with thee? Mine hour is not yet come, (John 2:3-4 KJV). He meant that, though he would perform what his mother had suggested, it would not have the results that she anticipated, for the hour had not yet come, the time had not struck. Repeatedly he said to the disciples, My hour is not yet, (John 7:30, 8:20). He was awaiting a time when opportunity would abound, and now, as he comes to the cross, he lifts his eyes unto the heavens and says, Father, the hour has come. By that he meant the hour had come in which all that he had lived for would begin to be fulfilled.

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Read: John 14:12-17

And I will do whatever you ask in my name, so that the Father may be glorified in the Son. You may ask me for anything in my name, and I will do it. John 14:13-14

Whatever … anything … I will do it. We sense immediately that this is too wide. If we take this as absolutely unlimited, a sort of magical Aladdin’s lamp that we can rub and ask for any possible thing in the world, certainly we have missed the true point of this passage. It is too wide to take unreservedly. We sense also that it is too contradictory if taken without limit. We can see problems arising. What if a Christian athlete is praying for clear weather and a Christian farmer is praying for rain? Which one wins?

No, this promise cannot be limitless. There is a condition here. Our Lord means exactly what he says but we must understand what he says. This is a magnificent promise of vast scope, of tremendous encompassment, but what he says is if you ask in my name. This is the condition.

That certainly means a great deal more than a magical formula to tack on to the end of our prayers. There is nothing quite as pagan, or silly, as this meaningless phrase, this we ask in Jesus’ name, added to our prayers without any understanding if the prayer is actually being asked in Jesus’ name. We do this because it is traditionally acceptable, and we do not understand what in his name means. In Christ’s name means in his authority and on the basis of his character.

All of us are familiar with the phrase, In the name of the law. Policemen do their business in the name of the law. Suppose a policeman goes into a cheap slum area of the city at three o’clock in the afternoon. He is called there because of some murderous activity that is going on, and he comes up to the address that has been given him, and knocks at the door, and says, Open in the name of the law. No one opens the door, so after he knocks again and requests that it be opened in the name of the law and there still is no answer, he breaks it down and goes in. But what if that same policeman is drunk? He is out in a residential area and for some reason on his own, in his drunken stupor, he stumbles up the steps of a house, and knocks on the door, and says, Open in the name of the law. Those within hear the thick voice and recognize that it is a drunk and refuse to open. So the policeman breaks down the door, and when he does, he is arrested and taken to jail himself.

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Read: Luke 11:5-13

So I say to you: Ask and it will be given to you; seek and you will find; knock and the door will be opened to you. For everyone who asks receives; the one who seeks finds; and to the one who knocks, the door will be opened. Luke 11:9-10

Take careful note of what Jesus says, for he suggests that there are three levels of prayer: ask, seek, and knock. You can remember them, incidentally, if you will take note of the fact that the initial letters spell the word ask, a ask, s seek, k knock. There you have a little formula for prayer. Now mark these three different levels. The circumstances of each are vastly different, but the answer is the same.

The simplest and easiest level, of course, is ask. What he means is that there are certain needs which require a mere asking to be immediately and invariably met, and the range of these needs is far wider than we usually give credit for. For instance, reading through the New Testament, it becomes clear that our need for Christlike attributes lies in this category. If we need love, courage, wisdom, power, patience, they all lie in this realm. Simply ask, that is all, ask, and immediately the answer is given. Is that not what James says, If any man lack wisdom. What? Let him ask of God who giveth to all men liberally and upbraideth not, (James 1:5 KJV). And what? It shall be given. That is all, it shall be given. Let him ask and it shall be given.

A second level of prayer is denoted by this word seek. You cannot think of what it means to seek without seeing that our Lord injects here an element of time. Seeking is not a simple act, it is a process, a series of acts. Jesus says there are areas of life that require more than asking; there must be seeking, searching. Something is lost, hidden from us, and prayer then becomes a search, a plea for insight, for understanding, for an unraveling of the mystery with which we are confronted. Again, the answer is absolutely certain. Seek, and you will find!

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Read: Luke 11:2-4

And lead us not into temptation. Luke 11:4b

This part of the Lord’s prayer deals with the realm of the spirit. In the unseen war of the spirit, the greatest needs of our life are deliverance and protection. But an immediate problem arises here, for Scripture reveals that temptation is necessary to us, a very real part of our life in this fallen, flawed world. No one escapes it in the Christian life. Furthermore, though God himself never tempts us to sin, yet he does test us in these difficult and discouraging circumstances, and these things become the instruments of God to strengthen us, to build us up and thus to give us victory. When we read this prayer, then we are confronted with this question: Are we really expected to pray that God will not do what he must do to accomplish his work within us? After all, even Jesus, we are told, was led of the Spirit into the wilderness to be tempted of the devil. What then does he mean?

I confess I have puzzled and prayed and read about this, and I am convinced that what he means here is that this is a prayer to be kept from unrecognized temptation. When temptation is recognized as such, it can be resisted, and when we resist, it is always a source of strength and growth in our life. If I am filling out my income tax and I find that some income has come to me through other than ordinary channels and there is no way of anyone checking it, I am confronted with a temptation to omit it, but I know it is wrong. No one has to tell me; I know it is wrong. When I resist that, I find I am stronger the next time when a larger amount is involved. You see, when we recognize lust as lust and hate as hate and cowardice as a temptation to be a coward, this is one thing. It is a rather simple matter to resist obvious evil, if we really mean to walk with God. But temptation is not always so simple. There are times when I think I am right, and with utmost sincerity and integrity of heart I do what I believe is the right thing, and, later, look back upon it and see that I was tragically wrong.

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Read: Luke 11:2-4

Forgive us our sins, for we also forgive everyone who sins against us. Luke 11:4a

Here is the need for a cleansed conscience, for a sense of peace, of rest with God and man. This is the arena where the emotional clutter of our life takes a very deadly toll. Who of us has not experienced troublesome mental symptoms, morbid depressions and unreasoning fears and insecurity? Both Scripture and modern psychology, in its groping after truth, agree that underneath these symptoms lurk two frightening monsters: Fear and Guilt. If we can find a way to slay these fiery dragons, the whole emotional atmosphere of our life will pass into peace.

When we pray, Forgive us our sins, we are asking for the reality that God promises to every believer in Jesus Christ, There is therefore now no condemnation to them which are in Christ Jesus, (Romans 8:1a KJV). I do not know anything that troubles Christians more than a sense of guilt. But in this simple prayer is a fully adequate answer, for if we have laid hold of the forgiveness of God, we know there is nothing any longer between us and the Lord. Our hearts there are absolutely free before him and the result is a pervading sense of peace.

But notice, now, Jesus immediately adds a limitation to this. We cannot say to God, Forgive us our sins, unless we are willing and have said to others that they are forgiven for their sins against us. Jesus is not referring here to that divine forgiveness that accompanies conversion. The Lord’s Prayer is meant for Christians — for only Christians can really pray it intelligently. No non-Christian ever receives forgiveness from God on the basis claiming to forgive everyone else. It is impossible for him to forgive until he himself has first received the forgiveness of God, and that forgiveness is offered because of the death of Jesus. We Christians come thanking him for what the death on the cross has already done in taking away the awful burden of our sin.

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Read: Luke 11:2-4

He said to them, When you pray, say: Father, hallowed be your name, your kingdom come. Luke 11:2c

The third cry of true prayer, again concerned with God, is a cry of hope, Your kingdom come. Now this can be a sigh for heaven. Who of us does not get homesick for heaven once in a while, longing to be free from the boredom of life and to experience the glory we read of in the Bible. Or this can be, as it ought to be, a cry for heaven to come to earth. That is, Your kingdom come, meaning, may the kingdoms of this world become the kingdoms of our Lord and of his Christ. There is much in Scripture about this, and who of us does not weary of the sickening senselessness of war and poverty, and misery and human despair, and long for that day to come when God shall rule in righteousness over all the earth?

But I think this prayer is more than that. It is more than a long, wistful look into the future, whether on earth, or off earth. It is a cry that God’s will may be done through, and by means of, the blood and sweat and tears of life, right now. That is, Your kingdom come through what I am going through at this very moment. That is what this prayer means. Scripture reveals to us a truth that man would never know by himself, but which becomes self-evident as we look at life through the lenses of the Word of God, and that is that God builds his kingdom in secret, so to speak. When it is least evident that he is at work this is frequently the time when he is accomplishing the most. Behind the scaffolding of tragedy and despair, God frequently is erecting his empire of love and glory. In these trials, hardships, disappointments, heartbreak and disasters, when we think God is silent, and when we have been abandoned, when we feel God has removed his hand and we no longer sense the friendship of his presence, God frequently is accomplishing the greatest things of all.

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Read: Luke 11:2-4

He said to them, When you pray, say: Father… Luke 11:2a

The Lord’s Prayer begins with a word of relationship, Father. May I point out that it is Father, not Daddy-o! There is a reverence about the word father that is absent in some modern expressions of fatherhood. It is essential to know to whom we are praying. We are not, when we come to prayer, talking about God. We are not engaging in a theological dialogue. We are talking with God. We are going to converse with him directly and so it is very essential that we understand to whom we are speaking. Our Lord gathers it all up in this marvelously expressive word and says true prayer must begin with a concept of God as Father.

Immediately that eliminates a number of other concepts. It shows us that prayer, real prayer, is never to be addressed to the Chairman of the Committee for Welfare and Relief. Sometimes our prayers take on that aspect. We come expecting a handout. We want something to be poured into our laps, something that we think we need, and in making an appeal we are but filling out the properly prescribed forms.

Nor is prayer addressed to the Chief of the Bureau of Investigation. It is never to be merely a confession of our wrong-doings, with the hope that we may cast ourselves upon the mercy of the court. Nor is it an appeal to the Secretary of the Treasury, some sort of genial international banker whom we hope to interest in financing our projects. Prayer is to be to a Father with a father’s heart, a father’s love, and a father’s strength, and the first and truest note of prayer must be our recognition that we come to this kind of father. We must hear him and come to him as a child, in trust and simplicity and with all the frankness of a child, otherwise it is not prayer.

Someone has pointed out that this word father answers all the philosophical questions about the nature of God. A father is a person, therefore God is not a blind force behind the inscrutable machinery of the universe. A father is able to hear, and God is not simply an impersonal being, aloof from all our troubles and our problems. Above all, a father is predisposed by his love and relationship to give a careful, attentive ear to what his child says. From a father, a child can surely expect a reply.

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Read: Acts 9:9-31

After many days had gone by, there was a conspiracy among the Jews to kill him, but Saul learned of their plan. Day and night they kept close watch on the city gates in order to kill him. But his followers took him by night and lowered him in a basket through an opening in the wall. Acts 9:23-25

What humiliation! Here Paul was, equipped to win the day for Jesus Christ. He was going to show the world how much he could do for this new Master that he had found. But instead he finds himself humiliated, cast off, rejected, repudiated. His own friends finally have to take him at night and let him down over a wall. He walks away into the darkness in utter, abject failure and defeat.

The amazing thing is that many years later, as he is writing to the Corinthians and looking back over his life, he recounts this episode. He says, You ask me to boast about the most important event in my life? The greatest event in my life was when they took me at night and let me down over the wall of Damascus in a basket. That was the most meaningful experience I have ever had since that day when I met Christ… (2 Corinthians 11:32-33).

Is that not amazing? Why would this be so? Because then and there the apostle began to learn the truths which he records for us in the third chapter of Philippians, where he says, Whatever gain I had, I learned to count as loss for the excellency of the knowledge of Christ Jesus… (Philippians 3:7-8 RSV). That is, All the things that I felt were so necessary to do what God wanted I had to learn were absolutely useless, worthless. I did not need them at all. Everything that I thought I had and needed to serve him I had to learn I didn’t need at all. The beginning of that great lesson was the night they let me down over the wall in a basket. There I began to learn something. It took me a long time to catch on. But there I began to learn that God didn’t need my abilities; he needed only my availability. He just needed me, as a person. He didn’t need my background, he didn’t need my ancestry. He didn’t need my knowledge of Hebrew. He didn’t need my knowledge of the Law. He didn’t need these at all. In fact, he didn’t have any particular intention of using them to reach the Jews, he was going to send me to the Gentiles. And though he did not understand it fully then, he began to assume the yoke of Christ and to learn that which Jesus Christ says every one of us must learn if we are going to be useful to him.

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Read: Acts 9:1-19

In Damascus there was a disciple named Ananias. The Lord called to him in a vision, Ananias! Yes, Lord, he answered. The Lord told him, Go to the house of Judas on Straight Street and ask for a man from Tarsus named Saul, for he is praying. In a vision he has seen a man named Ananias come and place his hands on him to restore his sight. Acts 9:10-12

Paul has been converted. Now he is a Christian. And what is the first thing he experienced as a Christian? The life of the body of Christ. That is wonderful, is it not? Two unknown, obscure Christians are sent to him. He meets them and is immediately helped by the strengthening that can come from the body, from other Christians. First there is a man named Judas. That is all we know about him. Saul is led to his house whom he has never met before. While he is there a man named Ananias is sent to minister to him.

Is there not a joyful, poetic irony about this, that the Holy Spirit has chosen two names which are tainted names elsewhere in the New Testament, Judas and Ananias. These names belong to two other people: Judas the betrayer of our Lord; and Ananias, the first Christian to manifest the deceit and hypocrisy of an unreal life. Yet, here are two people, bearing the same names, that are honored and used of God. It is just a little touch, but it seems so much like the Holy Spirit to use names like this.

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Read: Acts 8:25-40

After they had further proclaimed the word of the Lord and testified about Jesus, Peter and John returned to Jerusalem, preaching the gospel in many Samaritan villages. Now an angel of the Lord said to Philip, Go south to the road — the desert road — that goes down from Jerusalem to Gaza. Acts 8:25-26

An angel suddenly appeared to Philip. I’ve never had an angel appear to me. I do not know anyone else to whom an angel has appeared. You may ask, Does God still work through angels today? and the answer is a resounding Yes! He does. But they are not always visible. The ministry of angels, according to the Bible, goes on all the time. They are ministering spirits sent forth to serve those who are heirs of salvation (Hebrews 1:14). All of us are being touched and affected by the ministry of angels, but we do not see them. There have been well-documented experiences and incidences of the appearance of angels recorded in church history. I believe that, as we draw nearer to the days of the return of Jesus Christ, we may well expect to see a return of angelic manifestation.

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Read: Acts 2:38-41

Peter replied, Repent and be baptized, every one of you, in the name of Jesus Christ for the forgiveness of your sins. And you will receive the gift of the Holy Spirit. Acts 2:38

The Apostle Peter is answering this question, What shall we do? He acknowledges that there is something to be done. When you come to the place where you understand that Jesus is Lord, and that you are out of harmony with all his purposes and his life, then there is something to do. There are two things you need to do, Peter says, and then one thing God will do.

You need, first, to repent. Repent is a word that is greatly misunderstood. Most people think repentance means that you feel sorry, and you begin to cry and weep. That has nothing to do with repentance. You may feel sorry, and you may begin to weep and cry, but that is not necessary, and it does not mean that you have repented. Repent is a word which means to change your mind, to change your thinking. You have been thinking that everything was all right with you and all is well. You have been thinking that Jesus is nothing but a great teacher, or a great prophet, but that he is not the Son of God, and he is not the Lord of glory, the Lord of all the earth; well, think again. Repent — change your mind, get in tune with reality, line up with things the way they really are, is what Peter is saying. You have been kidding yourself, you have been deluded, you have been fooled; well, change your mind. Jesus of Nazareth, the Son of God — repent and put him where he belongs in your life.

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Read: Acts 2:32-37

Therefore let all Israel be assured of this: God has made this Jesus, whom you crucified, both Lord and Messiah. When the people heard this, they were cut to the heart and said to Peter and the other apostles, Brothers, what shall we do? Acts 2:36, 37

As Peter preaches the Gospel at Pentecost, he proclaims the authority of the Lord Jesus based on his resurrection from the dead. Suddenly all this made perfect sense to this multitude. The full force of Peter’s arguments thudded home, and they realized that they were in a very precarious position. This One whom he had proven, by indisputable evidence, to be Lord, was the One they had crucified 50 days earlier.

Can you imagine how they felt? It would be very much as if you went down to apply for a job, and on the way you got into an automobile accident. And when the other driver got out, you started beating and cursing and kicking him in anger. Then you got into your car and drove off, and went on to apply for the job. When you were all cleaned up and ready, you were ushered into the presence of the man whom you had just beaten and cursed out in the street. That is what these people felt. No wonder they were cut to the heart and cried out, Brothers, what shall we do?

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Read: Acts 2:22-31

But God raised him from the dead, freeing him from the agony of death, because it was impossible for death to keep its hold on him. Acts 2:24

Here revealed is the power of God among men — the resurrection power of God, a power which man cannot duplicate. Resurrection power is the ability to bring life out of death, to correct a situation which is hopeless, to change a person who is irremediable — that is resurrection power.

I met with a high school boy who told me about his conversion, and the reaction of his father. His father was baffled by this conversion. It fit no psychological pattern he knew of. He could not explain why his son was so suddenly and drastically different. Because he could not explain it, it angered him, and he reacted against it, and was fighting it all the way. This is the frequent reaction of those who come into contact with this power that raised Jesus Christ from the dead.

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