Episode Transcript
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Speaker 1 (00:00):
Christ cares about
your thoughts.
We're often bombarded bydarkness and fear and
disappointment, and sometimeseven tragedy and crisis, and
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during those times it's moreimportant than ever for us to
turn our thoughts back to God,where he can refresh us and
reassure us.
One of the great temptationsthat's very easy to fall into
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when life is tough is to isolateourselves.
It's a natural instinct, rightto try to pull ourselves back
from the world and hide and lickour wounds Because we don't
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want to feel those sharp painsand those piercing emotions.
And sometimes it feels likehaving to deal with that on top
of functioning in the world andinteracting with others is just
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too much.
And, if we're being honest,sometimes even being around
people we still feel isolated,we still feel lonely, we still
feel disconnected.
We still feel disconnected.
So it's not even always thatsurrounding yourself with people
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during a difficult time isnecessarily the remedy, because
it may not bring you thattangible relief.
When we're going through atrial or a temptation or a
tragedy, that's when we reallywant to kind of erect these
walls and hide behind them, andthat's a perfectly natural uh,
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normal thing to do Certainlymyself, normal thing to do
Certainly myself.
I'm a professional at hidingaway like that and being locked
up in my house facing my owndemons, despite how it may feel
Oftentimes, when we feel leastlike being around people is when
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it's most critical.
It would seem that Christbelieves in teamwork.
It's a funny thing to say, butthink about how his ministry
unfolded.
He was always traveling with ateam.
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He always had people around him, escorting him, protecting him,
loving on him and, yes,sometimes they were a burden too
, but he wasn't out there doingit alone.
And you might even say thatwhen we think of the Holy
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Trinity the Father, son and HolyGhost even that's a group, it's
a team.
Another aspect of it is here'sGod, presumably the creator of
the entire universe, presumablythe creator of the entire
universe, and yet he still madeus as part of the team, part of
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his family, people through whomhe would carry out his plans.
He really didn't have to dothat.
But when we look at Christ'sexample about isolation, one of
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the things that I find reallydifficult is when I'm really
under trial or I'm really down,is continually recommitting
myself to working with the group.
That could be anybody.
That could be your therapist,that could be friends, family.
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You know one thing I thinkthat's tough about it is when
you're in pain.
You don't necessarily want toincrease your obligations.
You don't want moreaccountability.
When you're wounded, whenyou're beaten down, that's when
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you want less accountability.
You want fewer people lookingover your shoulder, you just
want to be left alone.
And I fail at this, and I'vegenerally failed at this, I
think, over the course of mylife.
And I don't mind telling youthe cost of hiding behind the
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walls, hiding in your house,escaping accountability.
It's expensive.
It's expensive because thatapproach often is not
restorative, it's notregenerative, it actually slows
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down your progress and holds youback.
My mentor used to tell me thatthere are three ways to learn a
lesson the easy way, the hardway and the tragic way.
The easiest way is justlearning from other people's
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mistakes.
The hard way is learning fromour own mistakes and suffering
those, whatever the consequencesof us messing that thing up or
falling down on the job.
And then, of course, the tragicway is to just not learn from
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either and just to continuallyrepeat and repeat in this circle
, not gaining any knowledge orwisdom from others nor from what
we ourselves have just sufferedthrough.
How many of us have repeatedthe same mistakes?
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How many of us are sad orembarrassed by looking over our
lives and realizing how muchwiser we could have done it?
How many of us look back andsay, oh, wow, I'm delighted, I
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made all the perfect choices.
I mean, I was just a genius andI could see the future and I
understood the past and I justmade all the perfect choices.
I mean I was just a genius andI could see the future and I
understood the past and I justmade all the right moves.
Most of us have some regrets or,at the very least, can say, gee
, I wish I had known this thing10 years ago, 20 years ago, I
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wish I'd have known this cominginto adulthood, or I wish I
would have known this prior tobeing married or prior to taking
this certain job of Jesus as anovercomer in John 17 can give
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you great strength because itkeeps you outside of the mindset
of victimhood, because Jesuswas never a victim.
He never walked like a victim,talked like a victim.
He came on a mission and thatdidn't mean that he didn't
suffer, that didn't mean thatpeople weren't trying to him for
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sure, but he had come with anassurance from God, the Father,
and despite what the world wasthrowing at him.
He refused to fall into thevictim's mindset.
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Most of us aren't that good atthat.
I'm not that good at that, youknow.
When I'm really beaten down orin a really long, difficult
stretch, I definitely feelvictimized and I feel helpless
and hopeless and despairing, andhopeless, and despairing.
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Let's break down the prayer inJohn 17 so that we can really
understand what all it coversand why it's so powerful.
So first, in John 17, 1through5, christ prayed for
himself, in that the work thatwas to be done would be on earth
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as it is in heaven.
Then he prayed for hisdisciples that the Father would
keep them and sanctify them.
He closed his prayer by prayingfor you and me and the whole
church.
He prayed that we might beunified in him and one day share
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in his glory.
So why did Jesus pray thisprayer?
Well, certainly he knew thatthere were sufferings coming
down the road that he needed togird himself up for, and as he
contemplated the glory that hissuffering and death and
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resurrection would bring to theFather, he took on new strength.
He was re-energized.
Unfortunately for many of us,when we're going through
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something, we're finding it verydifficult to focus on the light
at the end of the tunnel, orthe glory, or the joy, or the
victory that we're going to comeinto.
I mean, a lot of the reasonswhy we're feeling so defeated is
precisely because we don't knowif we're ever going to see the
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light at the end of the tunnel.
We don't know how difficult ourpath is going to be, how
stretched out it's going to be,who's going to really help us
through or not?
But for Jesus, even though heknew exactly what that road was,
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he knew every second minute,hour, day that he was going to
suffer and how all of thesethings were going to unfold.
All of these things were goingto unfold All of the betrayals,
all of the impoverishment, allof the just, unjustified hatred
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and persecution, and to thenhave that all be capped off with
torture and death.
I mean, how could someonereally bear that, knowing that
that was coming down the pike,without having a way to really
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re-energize themselves, to beable to focus on that joy, focus
on that impending victory?
And so that's what Christ did.
Christ focused on that, which,of course, is in contrast to
most of us, because most of us,when we're down, that's kind of
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where we're at.
That's what we're talking about.
That's what we're talking about, that's what we're obsessing
about.
I'm going through this, I'mgoing through that and, believe
me, I'm not saying it critically, because I frequently do that
and I wish I didn't, or I wish Iwere stronger, or I wish I
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could dwell more in this glorythat Christ was already
envisioning and imagining thathe was coming into.
I'm sure I would feel a lotstronger and have a lot more
resilience if I could take holdof that.
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And I think one of the reasonswhy this prayer is left to us in
the Word is so that we caninternalize its message.
And it's interesting that,despite all he was facing which,
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obviously looking at his futureversus like that of his
disciples or other believers hecould make a pretty strong
argument that he was going to godown the hardest path and
certainly in light of the factthat he was actually innocent,
that this wasn't some paymentfor sin, neither God nor man
could hold anything against himthat would justify what all was
going to be done to him.
So, if you can just imagine,it's kind of like how we feel
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about children, right, it's onething when a full-grown adult
makes mistakes or breaks the lawor something and we tolerate or
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we accept that punishment orwhatever the ramifications are
for them.
Bad things happening to youngchildren it's especially
disconcerting and seemsespecially horrible because of
their innocence.
We know they're not sinful orthey're not bad people, or they
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haven't made bad choices or theydon't deserve what's happened
to them.
They don't deserve what'shappened to them.
We know that they didn'tdeserve to be diagnosed with
cancer when they were threeyears old.
We know they didn't deserve tobe beaten or abused in their
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household when they were fiveyears old.
We all pretty much agree thatwhen someone's innocent, it's an
especially painful and tragicsituation.
And this was the case for Christ, despite him obviously not
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being a child anymore when itcame to this aspect of his
innocence.
In that sense, he was worthy ofthat type of mercy.
He was worthy of that type ofmercy.
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Now, granted, you see, theworld didn't extend that mercy
to him.
And what an eye-opener that is.
Because for many of us, as wewalk through the world, we
recognize that there's notreally like justice, right,
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there's nothing, that life isnot fair.
Bad things happen to all of us,whether we're doing good or bad
, or wrong or right, or we'reyounger or we're older, so we
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know what it's like to just keeprunning into horrible things,
but we don't know what that'slike to be an innocent in that.
So here Christ was.
He knew he was going to faceall these things and he's
praying this prayer and indeedhe needed that strength.
But it's fascinating to me thathe decided to include his
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followers in that, praying forthem that they would be unified
and strengthened and lookedafter.
So imagine, like for them, whatan encouragement that must have
been.
Because, on one hand, what adiscouragement it would be to be
walking along with the Son ofGod, or even if you weren't even
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clear on exactly who he was.
Here you are, you're walkingaround with somebody performing
signs and wonders and sharinglove and forgiveness and
salvation with people.
So you love him, right, he'syour teacher, he's your friend,
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and once you realize that he'sgoing to go through all these
trials, that he's on thisinexorable path like this is the
way he's going and these arehow these events are going to
unfold.
That would be very discouragingon numerous levels, right?
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One you're going to lose yourfriend, your constant companion.
Two you're going to lose yourphysical manifestation of God.
Can you imagine if you had beenwalking around with God and
you're seeing people gettinghealed and people are being fed
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and love's being shared andmercy and grace, and now that's
going to be taken away.
I mean, wow, it just doesn'tregister.
So Christ prayed for them and,by extension, prayed for all of
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us, knowing that we would needthat fortification, that, as we
faced our own trials, we neededthat revivification, we needed
our batteries recharged, becausereally it should have been an
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encouragement to them at anyrate, because he prayed about
their security.
He prayed about their joy,their unity and their future
glory.
So I mean that covers a lot ofbases.
Future glory so I mean thatcovers a lot of bases.
He also prayed it for us today,so that we would know all that
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he had done for us and all thathe had given to us and all that
he will do.
In this prayer, our Lorddeclares four wonderful
privileges we have as hischildren, privileges that help
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to make us overcomers.
Let's pay special attention tothese aspects of the prayer.
In John 17, 1-5, we learn thatwe share His life.
In 6-12, we share His name.
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In 13-19, we have His Word.
In 20 through 26, we share Hisglory.
So think of the power that'sbound up in what all he's
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blessed us with, what all he'sgiven us access to, and not just
in the hereafter but also inthe here.
And that's why it's soimportant that we keep returning
to him with our thoughtsthrough prayers like this that
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put us in the victorious mindset, because otherwise, when we
look around, if we're left toour own devices or we turn on
the TV or are generally leadingus downhill.
And who can afford to bebarraged with those type of
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depressing, defeating thoughtswhen we're trying to stay strong
in a situation, when we'retrying to stay strong in a
situation?
So if Christ needed thatreinforcement, if he was praying
those types of prayers, if hewas keeping his eye on God and
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his promises and his mission,surely we too need to do the
same thing for us to survive andthrive through, no matter what
happens.
I hope you find this messageencouraging.
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This is Jimmy James Johnson.
Guilt-free Faith, keeping it100 on everything Christian.
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take care of yourself.
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