Any time I want to help someone understand how Christian community works, I include this passage.
I don’t know that there is a better chapter to help us understand the shared consciousness that must exist in the Trinity. In verse 2 Jesus states that He has been given authority over everyone. He states the same thing even more clearly in Matthew 28:18. What does Jesus do with this incredible power? He uses it to bring glory to His Father. It brings to mind the command “honor your father and mother”. Jesus keeps the command by doing exactly what the Father would do.
Anytime that I have been placed in charge of something, the people who placed me there had an expectation of what I would do. Implied in that command is the expectation that I will honor the people above me. I am never given authority with the idea that I will use my imparted authority to strike out at those who placed me there. And if I am a good steward of the resources entrusted to me, I use them to make the decisions that those above me would make, and in the process I make them look good.
Jesus sets a good example for us here. There is no adversarial tone, no hint of personal agenda in his actions or his language. He always honors the Father, and as He is doing that, He extends a hand to us. And when I say “us”, I mean the very people that were antagonizing and telling lies about Him! Jesus reaches out to the people who were throwing stones, picking fights and inciting the crowds to rebel against the message.
What a privilege! In the middle of His prayer, while He is talking about how He had glory with the Father before the world began, and how He longs to be back with the Father in glory, He says “and don’t forget about the people that you gave me, I want them to be with me in glory as well”. How wonderful it is to hear Jesus say that He wants us to be with Him in heaven! And at the same time, He prays for our protection! He does that because He knows that we are staying here. He is leaving, but we must stay for now. satan remains here, and after Jesus leaves he will try and kill the disciples. In fact, satan is still trying to kill the disciples. he wants to kill the message, discourage the Christians and incite the crowds against them. But Jesus has prayed for us, and even though we must face danger and persecution, we cannot be harmed, and the message we share cannot be suffocated.
We no longer belong to the world, our message isn’t of this world, and our future isn’t here either. Because of this great sacrifice that Jesus is going to make in just a few hours…we are accepted as holy.
Think of it. Holy. Not because of anything we have done, or will ever do. But because our sins are forgiven and the Father now sees us as perfect, because of the Son. Therefore, since we are now God’s holy people, we should behave in a different manner.
We should use the power and authority given to us to bring glory and honor to the Father. We should behave in the way the Father behaved, loving those who persecute us, and humbling serving one another out of reverence for Christ. since Jesus cared enough about us to include us in His prayer, and since His prayer was that we would all act as one, just as the Father and Son and Spirit are one, we should honor Him by honoring one another. We should pray for the safety of one another, even as we pray that God would send us out into dangerous places. And we should strive after holiness with all of our strength. Yes, God has made us holy….and now we choose to behave as holy.
Be blessed as you seek God,
PR