"Not for the world..."

“I am not praying for the world but for those whom You have given me, for they are Yours.” John 17:9

Jesus’ prayer here is interesting, for in it He clarifies both who He is and is not praying for.  Jesus says, “I am not praying for the world but for those whom you have given me.”  Jesus was not interceding for some group of nameless neighbors, ambiguous “lost” associates, or some generic globe of people, He was praying for the ones He had been called to disciple. These guys had names – Pete, John, Bart, Matt, Andy, and the others; Jesus was praying for them, not the world.

Am I saying that Christ was unconcerned with a world beyond His Twelve? Of course not! What I’m suggesting is that there are always means by which to carry the gospel forward, and in this case, as in all others, these means have names and faces. Skip ahead to John 17:20 – Jesus says, “I do not ask for these only, but also for those who will believe in Me through their word.” Why was He praying on behalf of His disciples? He went before the Father for them because the fruit of their faithful witness would eventually extend to us today. Side note, when Jesus prayed this prayer, as well as when He later uttered the famous phrase from Acts 1:8 (“You will be My witnesses in Jerusalem and in all Judea and Samaria, and to the end of the earth.”), North America was unknown at the time. We were the ends of the earth.

Yet this begs the question: Are we praying for the ones that God has placed in our path? Perhaps a better question is this: Are we currently involved in discipleship? By the way, discipleship is not a synonym for church attendance or bible study sit-ins. If that's what the Great Commission was all about then I’m sure every people group would be converted by now, for we have a culture that loves receiving information and instruction. We're just lousy at doing anything about what we hear. Last week at the Send Conference, IMB (International Missions Board) president, David Platt, put it plainly. He said we should be examining ourselves, as well as our local church bodies, asking this most basic of questions: When it comes to the gospel and biblical discipleship, are we receivers or reproducers? So then, are you intentionally engaging in the lives of others to grow in the grace and knowledge of our Lord for the purpose of making Christ famous around the world?

If we are serious about reaching the nations for Christ, we will begin by leading our own families. We will devote time to checking on the spiritual climate of our home. We will have a pulse on how the Lord is working in our spouse and children. We will spend time together in prayer, in Scripture, in purposeful settings where we are pressing into and pursuing our Lord. If our heartbeat is for God’s glory among a people who’ve yet to hear His sweet name proclaimed, then we will put our smorgasbord of study to action and apply that which we’ve taken in by serving and laboring to make disciples that make disciples.

For us to make disciples of all nations, we must be in the business of making disciples locally. For who shall we send to the heathen nation? We must first herald the hope of the gospel in our home; we must possess a passion for the people we pass by each week; we must carry genuine concern for our neighbor; for if not, we will never give a rip about the spiritual needs of Nepal or Northern Yemen. To use Jesus’ word picture, lest we are engaging and praying for the ones given us here in Jerusalem, we’ll never be ready to reach the ends of the earth.

There are a couple implications to this message that we must consider. First, let’s look at how this plays out locally. It appears that we must evaluate what we exemplify at home. As one of my fellow pastors says it, does this Jesus guy truly captivate us? If so, is it modeled in our daily lives – in the way we spend our time, money, energy, and resources? Additionally, our Savior’s high priestly prayer in John 17 urges us to examine how intentionally we are going after more intimate relationships with those we live near and work with weekly – not everyone, but the ones the Father has given us. There is a challenge to faithfully strive for the development of real relationships that will ultimately open doors for evangelism and discipleship.

Secondly, this should impact us in how we think globally. We are confronted with our need for education and exposure. Our heart for unreached people groups will not just all the sudden magically appear some day. As long as we busy ourselves with the hustle and bustle of our comfortable American lives, we will never be compassionately compelled to act. A simple way for us to position ourselves for the Spirit to enlighten the eyes of our heart is through seeking to understand what's happening. That translates into reading, studying, listening to podcasts about the missionary work being done around the world. Instead of scrolling Facebook for 20 minutes at a whack, perhaps we utilize that time to seek information from sites (Ex: imb.org, ntm.org, joshuaproject.net, persecution.com) that will awaken us to the reality of the age in which we live. Perhaps it is time for us to get our passport and save for a short term mission trip. Being exposed to the overwhelming physical and spiritual needs of others just might shift the way we conduct our lives here in the safety of the states. The truth is this: People are being born, living their entire life, and going to their grave, having never heard about Jesus of Nazareth. Others are being beheaded simply for proclaiming the same gospel that you and I profess to believe. Meanwhile, we in the U.S. are largely unmoved.

Can we truly have affection for our unnamed neighbor, for folks simply categorized as “lost,” for countries we can’t locate on a map, for people groups we can’t pronounce, for those perishing and dying that we do not know? Spurgeon once put it like this. “If you stand a half mile off from a man and throw the Gospel at him you will miss him, but if you go close to him and lay hold upon him a hearty grip of the hand, and show that you have an affection for him, you will by God’s blessing, lead him in the right way.” The mission must become personal and we must invest no less than our very lives. Praise God the saints before us took Christ’s commission seriously! We too must grow beyond our generic terms of “lost” and “world” and begin to pray as our dear Savior. Oh that we might love the ones we’ve been granted the privilege to share life with, so that one day, through their faithfulness and the power of the gospel passed along, people of every tribe and tongue and nation will be reached, thus hastening the second coming of King Jesus.

Matt Fowler
Associate Pastor of Missions & Students
matt@nbchurch.info
@fattmowler