One in the Lord

 

[The following is a manuscript of my message delivered at Pilgrim Reformed Church on Sunday morning, the 11th of October, 2026.  If all went well, a recording of the service may be available on our YouTube streaming channel: 

https://www.youtube.com/@pilgrimreformedchurch1992/streams for the older services or https://www.youtube.com/@pilgrimreformedchurch3115/streams for later services.]

You’ve probably noticed that prayer is pretty important to me.  And not just for me, but for all of us.  As I’ve said before, prayer is simply our talking with God.  Our heavenly Father loves to hear from His children, and prayer gives us the chance to tell Him how things are going.  And it’s not that He doesn’t know already, He just wants us to spend time with Him.

Jesus understood this concept, and He spent a lot of time talking with His Father.  And it was Jesus who gave us probably the most well-known and most often spoken prayer.  What we call the Lord's Prayer is actually the model Jesus gave us to use in forming our own prayer.  It is not necessarily a prayer He Himself spoke, at least it wasn’t recorded as such in the Gospel accounts.

But one of the longest prayers recorded in our Bible is when our Lord prayed to His Father God.  This is the one we should call the Lord’s Prayer.  In it, Jesus prayed for Himself, for His disciples, and for all who believe and will come to believe.

We believers are His disciples, so we are some of the ones He prayed for.  Think about that…  Jesus, in the flesh, nearly 2000 years ago, prayed for you and me.  Please listen and follow along as our Lord Jesus prays to His Father God in heaven, as recorded by the Apostle John in verses 6 through 23 of the 17th chapter of his Gospel account, and I’ll be reading from the New Life Version of our Holy Bible this morning…

6 “I have made Your name known to the people You have given Me from the world. They were Yours but You gave them to Me. They have obeyed Your Word. 7 Now they know that everything You have given Me came from You. 8 I gave them the Word which You gave Me. They received it. They know I came from You and they believe You sent Me.

9 “I pray for them. I do not pray for the world. I pray for those You gave Me. They are Yours. 10 All that is Mine is Yours. All that is Yours is Mine. I have been honored through them. 11 I am no longer in the world. I am coming to You. But these are still in the world. Holy Father, keep those You have given to Me in the power of Your name. Then they will be one, even as We are One. 12 While I have been with them in the world, I have kept them in the power of Your name. I have kept watch over those You gave Me. Not one of them has been lost except the one who is going to be destroyed, which is the son of death. The Holy Writings said it would happen.  13 But now I come to You, Father. I say these things while I am in the world. In this way, My followers may have My joy in their hearts.

14 “I have given Your Word to My followers. The world hated them because they do not belong to the world, even as I do not belong to the world. 15 I do not ask You to take them out of the world. I ask You to keep them from the devil. 16 My followers do not belong to the world just as I do not belong to the world. 17 Make them holy for Yourself by the truth. Your Word is truth.

18 “As You sent Me into the world so I have sent them into the world also. 19 I set Myself apart to be holy for them. Then they may be made holy by the truth.

20 “I do not pray for these followers only. I pray for those who will put their trust in Me through the teaching they have heard. 21 May they all be as one, Father, as You are in Me and I am in You. May they belong to Us. Then the world will believe that You sent Me. 22 I gave them the honor You gave Me that they may be one as We are One. 23 I am in them and You are in Me so they may be one and be made perfect. Then the world may know that You sent Me and that You love them as You love Me.” 

--John 17:6-23 (NLV)

Let us pray…  Father God, may the words of my mouth and the meditations of each of our hearts be acceptable in Your sight, O Lord, our Strength and our Redeemer.  And now, Father, please open our hearts to receive Your message this morning.  Touch each of us with Your most Holy Spirit that we might be more in one accord in our love of our Lord Christ Jesus, and our love for each other.  In the precious name of Jesus we pray.  Amen.

In one of Charles Schultz's Peanuts cartoons, Lucy demanded that Linus change TV channels, threatening him with her fist if he didn't. "What makes you think you can walk right in here and take over?" asks Linus. 

"These five fingers," says Lucy. "Individually they're nothing but when I curl them together like this into a single unit, they form a weapon that is terrible to behold."

"Which channel do you want?" asks Linus. Turning away, he looks at his fingers and says, "Why can't you guys get organized like that?"

Why can’t we Christians get organized like that?  Individually, we can accomplish a little, but when we get together, act in unison, work toward a common goal, we can become a force to be reckoned with.

Too many people, especially in our culture, see the church as fractured, segmented, disagreeing on many doctrinal issues, suffering many of the same divides as does our general society.  This is not what Jesus had in mind for His body left on earth.  We are not supposed to look – and act – like the rest of the world.  We’re supposed to be different, to be more united, to be one in the Lord.  We need to pay more attention to the Holy Spirit and less to the influencers of the world.

Jesus starts out by acknowledging that God gave Him believers, pulled from the world.  We Pilgrims are among those believers.  And Jesus prayed for us, but not for the world from whence we came.  We belong to God, and we belong to Jesus.  And He prays for us, that we may have His joy in our hearts.

And there at the end, Jesus prays to God that we may be one with them, just as Jesus and God are One.  “I am in them and You are in Me”, Jesus says.  Why?  So that we may be one and be made perfect.  Then the world may finally know that Jesus came from heaven, sent by God, showing God’s love for the world.

So what happened?  Why are we believers split into so many denominations, with differing polities and practices?  Why do we argue among ourselves over the silliest things?  Why we do get so upset with each other and just fed up with it all and leave, go looking for another church family to join?  Why can’t we love each other, like Jesus told us to do?

In verses 3 through 6 of the 4th chapter of his letter to the church in Ephesus, the Apostle Paul encourages us to get along with each other...

3 Work hard to live together as one by the help of the Holy Spirit. Then there will be peace. 4 There is one body and one Spirit. There is one hope in which you were called. 5 There is one Lord and one faith and one baptism. 6 There is one God. He is the Father of us all. He is over us all. He is the One working through us all. He is the One living in us all.

--Ephesians 4:3-6 (NLV)

We must work hard to live together as one, with help from the Holy Spirit.  There is one God, the Father of us all, over us all, working through us all, living in us all.  And He created us all in His own image.  No one of us is any better than any other of us, not in God’s eyes.  Paul makes this quite clear.  Writing regarding our relationships in the church family, in the 12th chapter of his letter to the Romans, verses 3 through 5, Paul reminds us of our position in the church...

3 God has given me His loving-favor. This helps me write these things to you. I ask each one of you not to think more of himself than he should think. Instead, think in the right way toward yourself by the faith God has given you. 4 Our bodies are made up of many parts. None of these parts have the same use. 5 There are many people who belong to Christ. And yet, we are one body which is Christ’s. We are all different but we depend on each other.

--Romans 12:3-5 (NLV)

We are one body, the body of Christ that He left on earth to continue His mission.  We may all be different, in many ways, but we have to depend on each other to accomplish our goal.  And in the 2nd verse of the 4th chapter of his letter to the Philippians, Paul pleads with us to agree with each other so that we can work together...

2 I ask Euodias and Syntyche to agree as Christians should.

--Philippians 4:2 (NLV)

Euodias and Syntyche were two prominent Christian women, active church leaders in Philippi, who had a bitter personal disagreement with each other.  By this letter, Paul publicly pleads with them to agree with each other in the Lord, as Christians should.  An entire sermon could be written based on this one verse alone, but I’ll save that for another time.

Sadly, even though we, as a church family, may always agree on Jesus, we still manage to bicker over minute details, over little things, over wrongs long forgotten.  This is our failure.  This disappoints both Jesus and God.

We can do better.  We must do better.  Let us dig deep within ourselves and resolve to work more closely together, to agree more readily with each other, to depend more on each other so as to better accomplish the job Jesus gave us.

In the blessed name of Christ Jesus our Lord, the Son of the one true God.  Amen.

Let us pray…  Almighty God, thank You for loving us all  and for giving us the gift of faith to believe in Jesus as Your Son and accept Him as our Lord.  Through Him, we are reconciled to You, adopted into Your family, made one with You.  Please help us work together better so we can more closely come to being one with each other.  Help us live our days as Christians should, in ways pleasing in Your sight, and not as the world lives.

Please hear us now, Father, as we pause for just a moment so that each of us can speak to You through Your Spirit within us, promising to be more obedient to You and our Lord Jesus, and seeking Your help to do so…

Lord Jesus, thank You for giving us a model that we can form our own prayers around.  And thank You most of all for praying for us.  Lord, we do want Your joy to be ours every day, all year long.  But sadly we just can’t always get along like we know we should.  Please help us nourish our relationships with each other as we grow closer to You.  Help us truly love each other as we love ourselves.  Help us show Your love through our love.  And in showing Your love, help us seek the lost and lead them to You.

Holy Spirit, please shield our minds and our hearts from Satan’s lies and the world’s empty promises.  Guide us around all the devil’s traps and snares.  Help us see though his temptations.  Help us keep our focus on the things of heaven and the needs of others rather than on anything this world might offer.  All this we pray in the blessed name of Christ Jesus our Lord.  Amen.