Jesus’ Road Map
Taking a closer look, take two
We already saw how intentional Jesus was in describing the subject of His prayer, our unity as His followers. It turns out that He was just as intentional in modeling how that same unity is achieved. And “practicing what He prayed” is the pattern here, too.
My friend Dennis Fuqua first introduced me to this very well-developed pattern in Jesus’ prayer in John 17. It looks like this:
There are four different requests that Jesus makes in the prayer.
Each one is repeated. (The last one, that we as His followers would be one, shows up four times; the other requests each show up twice.
Before Jesus repeats each request, He shows specifically how He had practiced what He prayed.
While the application of this prayer is much larger than America’s divided political landscape, let’s briefly see how it applies here.
Glorify the Son.
Unity starts by lifting up Jesus. This principle applies in every setting. If I’m in the middle of a disagreement with my wife and I ask the question, “What would glorify Jesus right now?” half the conflict is solved. Because much of our conflict comes from asking the wrong question, “What would glorify me?”
I don’t expect either political party to ask the “What would bring glory to Jesus?” question. Both are interested in a different question: “What will bring us more votes?” But as followers of Jesus in both parties, we can ask that question. It takes something larger than the gap to bridge the gap, and that something is a Person, Jesus.
Protect us from the enemy.
I don’t believe in the red cartoon character with the pitchfork, but the more mass shootings, genocides, abductions, human trafficking… it’s not hard to believe there’s an enemy. The Bible describes his motives as stealing, killing, and destroying, and his fingerprints are all over the news. We don’t need to fear him, but we dare not forget about him.
His chief strategy is to divide and conquer, which explains why Jesus would pray (and encourage us to pray) for protection. When we’re conscious of the divisive work he’s constantly sowing, we’re less likely to be part of that same work. And when it comes to politics, we clearly have our prayer work cut out for us.
Sanctify us in the truth.
Think back over the last several conflicts you were involved in. What’s the common denominator? Bad news – it’s you! You were in every conflict you were in. We have a tendency to drag our baggage with us wherever we go. The third request Jesus makes in His prayer for unity is that each of us would be sanctified in the truth – that we would mature and grow up.
We can’t control the way other people behave. But “other people” aren’t what prompted me to write this in the first place. It’s us – the various ways we forget who we are, make assumptions, invite the war into our living rooms, and Facebook firebomb our “friends.”
If you look back over those three petitions, they form an amazing acronym without any manipulation on my part at all – in fact, it works in Spanish just like it does in English.
Glorify the Son,
Protect us from the enemy,
Sanctify us in the truth.
It’s our GPS for unity, which is the fourth petition in the prayer. The first three requests Jesus prayed are how the main focus, the last request, comes to pass. The first three are the road map for unity.