MTYC 2011: Able to Stand

<p>Free sharing permitted under the Creative Commons <a rel="license" href="http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc-nd/3.0/us/">BY-NC-ND 3.0 (US)</a> license.</p>

Montana Youth Conference

Nathan Shires

With Me Where I Am

Tonight's message is titled, With Me, Where I Am.

It's taken from John Chapter 17 in your Bible.

So if you would open your Bibles there this evening, John Chapter 17.

This is a very familiar chapter, a very beautiful chapter.

And as we turn in our Bibles there, I would like to ask a prayer before I even begin to open God's Word for you this evening.

So if you would bow your heads 1 more time with me.

Our loving Father, I thank you that we even have the privilege of calling you our Father.

I thank you that, Lord, you hear our prayers and you you care for us about great and small things that you who see even the smallest sparrow fall we know you care for us we know you watch us father before we open your word this evening I want to ask for your Holy Spirit to be the 1 who instructs us.

I surrender to you and give you permission to fill me with your Holy Spirit and to speak your words through me.

Father, I ask that the messenger will not be seen tonight, but that those who are here might see Jesus and hear your words.

And all these things I ask in the name of Jesus.

Thank you, Father, that you hear our prayer.

John chapter 17 is what we're looking at.

What is God's greatest and most pressing desire concerning you?

What is, if we were to ask the question tonight, what would you suppose the greatest and most pressing desire on God's heart concerning you is?

Well, we don't want to suppose anything tonight.

We want to look in God's word and see what he says because if you could hear God pray, This is exactly what you're hearing as we read in these words.

Jesus is praying and you can hear in his earnest plea wonderful words.

These are grand themes that we're reading.

Let's begin in verse 20, John 17, verse 20.

Jesus as he prays you hear a burden on his heart.

He says he's prayed for his disciples, now he says, Neither pray I for these alone, but for them also, Which shall believe on me through their word, that they all may be 1, as thou, Father, art in me, and I in thee, that they also may be 1 in us, that the world may believe that thou hast sent me and hast loved them as thou hast loved me.

Father, I will that they also whom thou hast given me be with me where I am.

That the world may behold my glory which thou hast given me for thou hast loved me before the foundation of the world.

This passage is 1 of the most sublime, the most ennobling, the most profound passages that we can contemplate in the Bible.

As Jesus is praying these words for you and I, the future believers, there are grand things that do well for us to always keep in the forefront of our minds, especially as we're studying the subject of the sanctuary.

If we don't understand tonight's message, It won't do any good for us to go any further and study the rest of the messages.

So we're going to focus on these words but we're going to focus particularly on the last line of verse 23 and the first line of verse 24, Just 2 short passages in this prayer.

Now it's clear that Jesus, as he's praying for future believers, he's, there's a desire on his heart, you see it, for them to be brought into unity.

He's praying for a reunion between God and man in this prayer, and as he's praying for unity, he's praying for unity in him.

He says 5 times that they may be 1 but this isn't what we're focusing on tonight we're focusing on the last part of verse 23 as I mentioned and the first part of verse 24 we'll read it 1 more time Listen to Jesus's earnest plea to the Father.

He wants you to know that God has loved them, which would be you, as God has loved him.

He says, and thou hast loved them as thou hast loved me.

But tonight we wanna focus first of all on these beginning words, and hast loved them as thou hast loved me.

You see, Jesus' desire this evening, the first part of this that we're focusing on, is for you to be aware that the same amount of love that God had for his beloved son is the same amount of love that he has for you.

Think about the profound nature of this thought.

Let's take our minds back to the Garden of Gethsemane where Jesus is on the garden floor and he's crying out to his father.

He's saying, Oh my God, oh my father, if it be possible, let this cup pass from me.

Nevertheless not as I will, but as thou wilt.

And as Jesus is there, Luke describes him as blood is being wrung from his brow, great drops of sweat and falling to the ground.

And as he's there, he's already said the words, My soul is exceeding sorrowful, even unto death.

And as Jesus is there in the garden of Gethsemane, he's in so much agony because of the thought that the weight of sinful humanity, the guilt, is going to sever his living connection between him and the Father.

And as he's there in this agonized state, let me ask the question, did the father suffer any less grief over this thought?

Did it bring any less grief to the heart of God?

A quote from a book titled Early Writings says, think ye that the father yielded up his dearly beloved son without a struggle?

It was even a struggle for the God of heaven, whether to let guilty man perish or to give his beloved son to die for him.

As the father heard his son's cry on the cross, My God, my God, why hast thou forsaken me?

And as He looked at his beloved son, he looked away in agony, in grief, in horror, because when he looked at the spotless Son of God, his beloved son, he saw a God-cursing atheist.

He saw someone who was guilty of torture and genocide as Hitler was.

When God looked at his beloved spotless Son on the cross, he saw your sins and he saw mine.

And as he looked away in horror and agony from the sight of his son on the cross, we catch a glimpse that God loves us as he loved Jesus.

We catch a glimpse that the same grief, The same agony, the same horror that God felt when he looked at his beloved son and saw all these vile filthy things is the same grief and the same agony that tore his heart as Adam and Eve disobeyed his explicit commands and they rebelled against him eating the fruit and they were separated from him.

We get the picture that when God looked at his beloved son and grief and horror tore his heart, this is the same anguish and grief that tears the heart of the Father when you and I rebel against him today, push away his loving arms, step outside from his grace, and we go and we commit those same sins.

That the Father loves you and I with the same amount of love, in the same way that he loved Jesus.

Jesus says that he wants you to be aware that God loves you as he loved him.

We want to go on because as Jesus continues his prayer, he goes on in verse 24 to say, Father, I will that they also, whom thou hast given me, be with me where I am.

Father, I will that they be with me where I am.

Think back to the Garden of Eden when God created Adam and Eve.

There was no, there was the lion that lay down with the lamb.

There was trees that were taller than redwoods in California.

There was flowers that were more beautiful and vibrant than the flowers we see today.

In this perfect paradise God created for man called Eden, he placed Adam and Eve there and he had created Adam and Eve in Genesis 127.

It says, in his own image and in his likeness.

And as God placed them there, He created them in such a way that they could have an intimate personal relationship with Him.

Think of the thought of as you look into my face this evening, you could look into the face of God and you could see His expressions.

You could ask Him a question and he was right there and you could look into his face and he could give you a personal answer.

God created man in a personal way to where we could have, where we're relational.

He said it's not good for man to be alone.

He placed him in the garden and we read in Genesis chapter 4, or chapter 3, verse 8 and 9 that God walks in the garden in the cool of the day.

His presence is there as he's looking for Adam at that point.

So we read that God created man to be with him where he was.

But then Adam and Eve disobey, rebel against God's command, transgress his explicit command.

You know the story, they eat of the forbidden fruit, sin enters this world and something changes between man and God in their relationship.

How does sin affect man's relationship with God?

Let's look at a passage to answer this question tonight.

Turn in your Bibles to Isaiah, the book of Isaiah chapter 59.

Isaiah chapter 59, which is before Jeremiah, Psalms, Proverbs, Ecclesiastes, Song of Solomon, Isaiah.

And Isaiah gives us an incredible picture of how sin affects, in a very dramatic way, man's relationship with God.

Back to Menu

With Me Where I Am

Transcript

Parent Conference

Sponsor

Recorded

Sound Doctrine