John 17:1-3: Jesus' Prayer for His Bride

TVCC Students,

It was so wonderful to worship with you all last night. It is such an encouragement to us to see you all engaging in genuine worship and intimately loving the Lord. Last night we went through John 17:1-3 which is the beginning of Jesus' prayer for His bride (the body of Christ). Here is a recap...

~John 17:1: Jesus communicates with the Father. If Jesus, the Perfect Son, takes time consistently to speak and listen to the Father, how much more should we, as imperfect children made righteous through Jesus, spend time both listening and speaking to the Father on a constant basis?

Q: Are you spending time with the Lord on a continual, daily basis? What changes do you need to make in your life this week so that you can have more time that is wholly devoted to your relationship with the Lord?

~John 17:1-2: Jesus is saying that the time has come for His purpose to be fulfilled. The culmination of His life was in purchasing His Bride (those who would believe in Him as their Lord and Sin-taker). Jesus was looking not only at the Cross to come where He would make His Bride clean, but to the resurrection where He would be able to have an intimate relationship with those who are His through faith in His atoning sacrifice.

Q: Do you realize the lengths that Jesus went through in order for you to have a relationship with Him? He gave the ultimate sacrifice for His Bride- He gave His life! What changes do you feel the Lord calling you to make so that your life will reflect that you are indeed His Bride and that you love Him?

*Jeremiah 2:11-13: We often forget the state that we were in when Jesus came to purchase us with His life. None of us were worthy of being called His Bride. All of us were like Israel in the book of Jeremiah. We have all forsaken the Lord to create our own gods/security systems that are broken and offer no fulfillment. In the Lord we were all offered fountains of living water and we all exchanged that living water for stagnant water that we tried to create with broken systerns. All of us have fallen short (Romans 3:23) and were in need of the death and resurrection of Christ on our behalf to restore us back to a relationship with the Source of living water!

*Jeremiah 3:12 calls Israel to return to the Lord as He is gracious and His mercies are new every morning. The Lord has always wanted His Bride to be close to Him. The call is the same for us today. Return to the Lord. If you have never come to acknowledge that you are a sinner and that you are trusting in the death and resurrection of Jesus Christ on your behalf, we encourage you to do that now (and please know that we would love to talk with you about this decision). If you are already a believer in Jesus but have been wandering from Him and returning to your broken systerns instead of living off of His living water, we encourage you to repent and return to Him. His mercy is new every day and He wants you to have an intimate relationship with Him.

Q: What is preventing you this week from forsaking your broken systerns that you have created and returning to the Source of living waters that desires an unhindered relationship with you? We encourage you to ask the Lord to help you overcome anything that is separating you from Him this week.

~John 17:3-4: As earlier stated, Jesus' main goal was to bring us back to the Father through the Sacrifice of Himself on our behalf, for our sins. This verse sums it all up. Eternal life that Jesus is extending to us through His blood is that we would intimately know Him (as a husband knows his wife) and the Father. He does not just want us to know a bunch of facts about Him... He died so that we would have a relationship with Him!

Q: How is your relationship with the Lord? Just as all of our earthy relationships take time and intentionality, so does our relationship with the Lord. We need to set aside undistracted time to get to know Him and to listen to His heart expressed through His Word. What changes do you need to make so that you might have more time to spend growing in your relationship with the Lord?

~John 17:5: This act of mercy (Jesus' death on our behalf) brought Him eternal glory. Though the world would look on His death as a shameful and pitiful act, the Father viewed this as the most glorious  event. Many times the world looks on merciful, God-honoring acts as shameful and pitiful but we must remember that we were called to love as we have been loved.

Q: How are you doing at loving others the way that Christ loves you- with unconditional continual love? Are you holding grudges or living in unforgiveness towards anyone at this time? If so, we encourage you to bring that to the Lord prayer and ask to love as you have been loved. Living a life of mercy and forgiveness towards others will show the world how great your God is!

Dear students,

We are so thankful to get to worship with you every week. It is a blessing to see you all growing in love for the Lord and each other. We encourage you to spend time praying to the Lord and listening to Him as He speaks to you through His Word. We know that this will strengthen your hearts as you grow closer to Him. We love you!

With hope,

~Sonny and Casi

John 16:25-33

Dear TVCC Students,
We all made it to spring break!! As we said on Wednesday, even though it is Spring Break we will be having Life Service and small groups as normal. This past Wednesday Sonny taught us from the end of John 16. It was encouraging to be reminded that even when we are weak and faithless, He remains faithful and that we have direct access to the Father through faith in His Son Jesus. What an indescribable gift!! Here is a recap...

~John 16:25-26: Jesus is revealing something new to His disciples. Since the instatement of the priesthood, the Jewish people did not have direct access to the Lord. They would have to go to a priest, have him offer a sacrifice for forgiveness of sins, and usually wait for the priest to reveal what the Lord was desiring to say. It was a lengthy process. Jesus, as the fulfillment of the law, the sacrificial system, and righteousness made a way for us to have direct access to the Father. When we believe in His death and resurrection on our behalf, we are now able to come directly to the Father as Jesus' righteousness is imputed to us (Hebrews 4:14-16).

Q: Have you trusted in the death and resurrection of Jesus on your behalf that you might have direct access to the Lord? If so, what things in your life do you feel that He is calling you to change so that you might have a closer relationship with Him? Are you spending time daily with Him in prayer and in His Word so that you might have a closer relationship with Him?

~John 16:27-28: Jesus tells the disciples that because they have loved Jesus, they are loved by the Father (John 3:35-36). Just as in our lives, when people love our children, it is very easy for us to love them.

~John 16:29-30: After all of His teachings, the disciples FINALLY get it! They affirm that He knows all things and that He is from God. They are here confessing that the believe Jesus for who HE and the Father say that He is. They are laying aside all of their notions of how God would do things and affirming that they believe in Him fully as the Messiah. It is important that we realize that when we pick and choose things about God that we would like to believe we are making a god in our own image (Deut 4) and serving an idol, not the true God. Authentic, life giving faith is rejecting all of our false views of God and submitting fully to Jesus as the Lord (and thus submitting to the Word of God to reveal to us the character of God).

Q: Do you believe that the Word of God is our standard to reveal the true character of the Father and Son? Are you submitting yourself fully to the Word and ready to reject any of your false views of God that might go against Scripture? Just as it would be impossible for us to have a relationship with someone while not accepting anything about who that person really is, we cannot have a relationship with the Lord if we do not take Him entirely for who He says He is in His Word. We encourage you to make sure that you have not created a god in your own image and that you are serving the Living and True God!

~John 16:31-33: Jesus was encouraging the disciples that though their faith in Him was strong at the moment, they would soon be tempted and fall away. In this life we will fail often but Jesus' encouragement was that He has overcome the world! Our faith does not depend on us but on the Lord. He who began a good work in us will bring it to completion, despite our failures (Philippians 1:6)! We will do well to remember this too- we will be weak but thanks be to God that our salvation does not depend on our goodness but His grace (Ephesians 2:8-9).

Q: Not long after the disciples professed great faith in Jesus did they turn from Him in a moment of weakness. In what ways have you turned from Him in moments of weakness this week? We encourage you to remember that He is the Author and Perfecter of faith (Hebrews 12:2). Confess your shortcomings and doubts this week and return to Him.

Dear students,
We are so thankful to get to worship with you on Wednesdays and Sundays. We pray that you will remember that even though we all stumble and fail at times, His grace is not dependent on us. Once we have trusted in the death and resurrection of Christ on our behalf, we are eternally secure and nothing can take us from the Father's hands. Do not let satan tempt you this week to feel that your weaknesses make you unable to come to the Father. Confess your sins and return to Him, claiming His righteousness as your own through faith. This is the desire of that Father- that you would be near to Him through faith in His Son! We love you and are praying for you this week!

With hope,
~Sonny and Casi