Oneness That Is In God (John 17:20-26)

Good evening, everyone.  To all the remnants listening on the broadcast and to their families, hello.  The title for today’s message is, “Oneness That Is In God.”  What do you think “oneness” means?  When you ask the people of this world, “What does it mean to be One?” What do you think the answer will be?  I’m sure there will be many answers, but based on what I’ve seen and heard, it appears that Oneness is when people come together based on their beliefs and values.  

Oneness in the world is ultimately where people come together with shared values. Sometimes, it can be for a good reason, but it can also be for a bad reason. For example, if there are people who are one in believing in the value of human rights, you’ll see protests like the Black Lives Matter movement.

Let’s say you want to get ice cream, but there’s something you must do.  For example, let’s say you’re meeting someone at church for Darakbang, but I’m tired and want to stay at home and not want to do anything, but there’s Friday night service, and I don’t want to go because I’m really tired.  Being tired isn’t bad; it’s actually rightful because you’ve had a long day at work, right?  But I realized that Satan can use that to bring me away from God.  So, I don’t want to be legalistic, I’m not talking about what’s legal or what’s lawful, but basically, I’ve come to be more aware of how Satan can use my spiritual problems and my weaknesses to bring me away from God.  

So, really there’s nothing wrong with being tired, but underneath that, there’s self-centeredness, and in that moment, I want to sleep more than I want to nurture my spirit, or I want to go eat rather than fill my spiritual state.  If you don’t come to church because you’re tired, “Do I have to come to church, even if I’m tired? Does that mean I’m not a good child of God?”

That’s not the message I’m trying to portray. I’m not trying to say that because you don’t want to go to church, you’re not a child of God. We need to be aware spiritually of how Satan uses our sins to bring us away from God. But that’s my personal spiritual problem. Everyone has their spiritual problems, and Satan can use them in any shape or form that is based on your spiritual problems. It can be different for each person, but this is my testimony.

And I realized this looks very similar to the world too. There is that oneness for Black Lives Matter, but it’s not bad, right? But we need to understand what is the core of that oneness. Because the core of that oneness doesn’t come from God’s word; it comes from me. That’s why ultimately, it can be seen as oneness but it is limited. With that said, where does oneness come from? Oneness comes from God. Before God created this world, oneness existed.

When God created the heavens and earth, it wasn’t just Him; it was the Triune God, Three in One, Who created this earth.  It’s so funny because when I read this verse, I realized that Oneness existed before creation.  On top of that, there’s more “oneness” showing up in Genesis.  When Adam was created, God saw that Adam needed a “helper,” but before that, when God created man in His own image, He created mankind to be with Him. God created us to be one with Him, so oneness appears in the image of God.  Because we’re created in spirit, we can only live when we’re one with God.

On top of that, now that Adam is One with God, God sees that Adam needs a helper, so what does God do? God takes Adam’s rib to create Eve, so literally, Eve is from Adam; you can’t be any more “one” than that.  So, there’s oneness there: oneness between Adam and Eve, and oneness that comes from God. Then, when you look throughout scripture, God constantly emphasizes, for example, when God brings the Israelites out of Egypt, God tells them to worship.  But why would God want the Israelites to worship? Because that’s the only way for people to live.

When you’re worshiping God, you go before the Lord, and there’s this oneness.  I think that, in the Old Testament, that was one way of God showing oneness, but today as well, as you come to worship the Lord, we have oneness with God. We go before the Lord in spirit. We cannot receive God’s message, it’s not a lecture, but it’s more of going to the Lord in spirit and we receive God’s Word in faith.  

When you look into John 17:20, it says, “My prayer is not for them alone; I pray also for those who will believe in Me through their message.” Because we are people of God, then through Jesus Christ, we have become one with God. But it says here that Jesus doesn’t only pray for His disciples, but He also prays for the ones who will believe in Jesus, in Him, through the disciples’ message. So, when we look at this scripture, “the people who will hear and believe,” when we’re in our fields and families, we won’t know who will hear and believe. We don’t know who will hear and believe in our fields and families, but we will pray for them.

We pray for people in our fields and families.  If there are people in our families who don’t believe in God, we pray for them.  Earlier, Haeun and I were sharing forum in the car and Haeun was talking about her work field, and one of the things we shared together is that God has placed us in that field, not for no reason, Haeun is working in a pharmacy and I am a Psychologist but why has God placed us in those fields?  

Work is hard, right? But that’s not the center; the reason why God placed us in the field is because there are people whom God has prepared in those fields, whom we must pray for. So for me personally, even this past week, I work in a very heartbreaking field and as I’m working, of course it’s hard, but through God’s Word, I realized that from the scripture as well, when Jesus prays “for those who will believe in Me,” in John 17:20, there are people in my field whom God has prepared, whom I must pray for. Work is still hard, but it’s about enjoying that oneness in my workplace because that oneness is where God and I have a oneness, and that oneness is 237, healing, and summit.

My field is healing and summit.  I’m in that workplace because God placed me there for that mission.  If I’m one with God in that mission, then God gives me the strength, because God is with me.  So, one of the other things in the message that profoundly came to me was, “What does it mean to be in prayer while you work?’  Do you just set aside your work and pray?  I remember this came up in the message a few weeks back.  To pray while you work, does that mean you literally step away from your work to pray?  

Praying while you work is a spiritual thing, that, in that moment as I work, I pray because the Spirit of God is already with me. It’s not that God comes into your heart when you pray and leaves when you go back to work.  We are a temple of God even in your field. So, being in prayer while at work is a spiritual thing.  It’s enjoying that oneness with God in that moment.  That’s what it is, enjoying the spiritual power that God gives to me while I study and work.  Then, I realized that I am enjoying this power because it’s a spiritual thing, it influences my clients, it influences my supervisors, and my coworkers.  So, when I’m working, because I’m enjoying this oneness with God, that God is with me, the spirit of the Triune God is with me and working through Me for His good purpose, that becomes my power, my spiritual strength, and that influences the people in my workplace.

Then when we look at John 17:21, “That all of them may be one, Father, just as You are in Me and I am in You.” We pray so that the people in our fields may also be one with Jesus, then in the next sentence, “May they also be in us so that the world may believe that You have sent Me.”  When you think about this, being one with God, Jesus says, “May they also be in us so that the world may believe that You have sent Me.” It’s a different kind of power. It’s a power, it’s a oneness that doesn’t exist in this world, and I think here that this is what Jesus is saying.  God being with me is a spiritual power, and the world begins to see that God is with you.  It’s not literally that they see God in you, but through the work you do, through the people you meet, they recognize that you have a different kind of spiritual power.  

It’s not like they see something coming out from us, no, but it’s that we are able to have blessings that the world cannot give.  What is that blessing?  Being able to be one with other people.  It’s truly a blessing when you’re able to let go of yourself and embrace other people because it’s sin that makes us not want to be with others, but it’s through Jesus Christ that we’ve been released from the power of sin, and we can have oneness with others as Jesus had oneness with God.  

And so, when we’re enjoying that oneness with God, we’re able to have oneness with other people.  What does that mean, “oneness with others”? It’s oneness with unbelievers.  What does that mean?  It’s about really seeing a person as someone who needs Jesus.  It’s recognizing that what they’re doing to you is not because they are bad people, but they have no choice but to do that stuff to you.  It is sin, Satan deceiving them with sin, to really hurt your feelings.  So, it’s not the person you’re fighting with, but it is a spiritual battle behind that person.

When you have the spiritual eyes, those spiritual eyes do not come from the world.  The world does not teach you to be understanding. They’ll teach you, but they don’t teach you to look at the spiritual world. The world can teach you to be understanding but that has a limit because the world can say, “Be more understanding, be loving, be more open to others,” but honestly, that has a limit.  Limitless understanding and limitless love only come from Jesus Christ.

So when we’re one with God, we can be one with others because we have the blessing to understand. So, I think this is what Jesus is saying when He says, “May they also be in us so that the world may believe that You have sent Me,” it’s very layered.  

John 17:22, “I have given them the glory that You gave Me, so that they may be one as We are one.”  That glory is a glory that only comes from Jesus.  If Jesus gave that glory to us, we are separate from this world, then even among non-believers we can be one. Among believers, we can be one because God has given us that glory.

And verse 23 “I in them and You in Me so that they may be brought to complete unity, then the world will know that You sent me and have loved them even as they have loved Me.”

Amen, So again as I was reading the scripture throughout this week and thinking about what oneness means, oneness does not come from our own strength, and experiences, but it truly only comes from Jesus Christ. Because Jesus Christ, God, and the Holy Spirit are already One, because He was One before creation.  Because the source of Oneness is with us, we can also have Oneness with other people. 

I feel like I’m saying oneness a lot, because it’s the title of this message and I’m going to use it many more times.  Even in your relationship with other people, there will be people who will make you pissed, there will be people who will make you sad, there will be people who make you frustrated and angry. It’s not just people like your coworkers, but it can also be people from your family.  In my family, it’s just me and my mom, and she makes me very angry and I make her very angry, but this answer really applies to our family as well.

She’s probably listening to this message but I’m going to talk about something my mom did.  So generation curses are very very real because my mom always yells at me for being slow and late. So there has been multiple times during the week where I waited for my mom downstairs because I had to take her to the hospital. So I’m just sitting in my car, 10 min, 15 min. 

I call her, asking her, “Where are you?” She’s home, but she’s not coming down to come to the car so we can go to the hospital, so I’m calling her but she doesn’t pick up because she’s rushing on the fifth floor of the apartment to get things.  Or, if she does pick up, she yells at me, even though she’s the one who’s late and making me wait, she’s yelling at me,” Stop distracting me, stop calling me, I’m coming down right now.” The nerve! I’m the one taking her to the hospital, waiting for her downstairs, but she’s telling me this and that.

So she comes downstairs and I told her, because she’s always telling me that i’m late to things, someone who’s always 20 minutes late is yelling at me, telling me I’m always late, I told her, “The reason why I’m late, Mom, is because you’re always late.  That spiritual problem of yours came down to me.”  Because she always yells at me for being late, but she’s the source and it came to me. 

So you know how she’s supposed to say “oh you are right,” that should be the correct response right? But she got even more mad she was like, “How could you say that? That’s not true.”  THe reason why I’m talking about all this is because I see my mom’s lacking, I see my own lacking, but Jesus is the Christ.  So what does that mean, that Jesus is the Christ, even at that moment?  My mom has a spiritual problem, I have a spiritual problem, and that spiritual problem exists because sin is real and Satan deceives us.  That’s how Satan creates division in our home.

So when I see my mom I yell at her because she is being late, Satan likes that, because I am not looking at it spiritually. My mom has no choice but to be in that way, and I have no choice to be in that way, so this is why Jesus has come to us, so that he can be the everlasting answers  to our lacking. 

So in that moment, it becomes an opportunity for blessings.  How?  When I see my mom, I see that she’s lacking, but God has placed this woman as my mother, and I must pray for her, I have to still obey and respect her, and one way of doing that is to pray for her.  This is why Jesus is the Christ. 

So it really ultimately becomes for me, a time to confirm that Jesus is the Christ because, if not, if oneness is taken out of this equation, all we do is fight, fight, fight, until someone leaves the house. But when I pray in the name of Jesus Christ, I begin to really love my mom.  I begin to be really thankful for her, because through her, we can enjoy Jesus together, and I realized that this oneness also applies to my school field.  

There’s one professor who really, really frustrates me.  This professor has many, many issues but as I was meditating on God’s Word, God began to change my heart.  One way He does that is, when I start to look at the professor who has so many problems, I see how she is so lonely and is really depressed.  She is someone who doesn’t have many friends

She’s kind of ostracized from her family.  So, when you look at it from the outside, even from a worldly perspective, you think it’s so sad, she really has no friends, but spiritually, she’s living under the control of Satan.  Satan is really using her scars to hurt everyone else around her, and one of them is me. 

But I think the reason why God has placed this person in my life is because I must pray for this person. Once God begins to give me that grace, I began to get very excited because the thought of her meeting Jesus made me so happy. So, I began to constantly pray for her.  As I’m praying for her, I’m more open with her, being understanding with her.  When everyone else is trying to avoid her, I’m trying to get to know her more and talk to her.  I think she recognizes that, so she’s becoming more open with me.

And from that point on, the gospel is being proclaimed to her. So I realized I would not come to this point if I had not known Jesus, because I would just be like, “Forget this person. I’m just going to graduate and leave so I have nothing to do with this person.” But, if God has placed me in that field for that person, to pray for that person, then it’s that oneness in God, holding onto 237, healing, and summit.  

Life is so good because of Jesus.  Because of Jesus, I get to enjoy this life where I have no problems, but I get to be in prayer.  So, I hope that we can all enjoy oneness in God.  Then, enjoying oneness with God, we can enjoy oneness with our families, our coworkers, and our friends.  God gives us that blessing to have oneness because of Jesus Christ.  Let us pray.

Prayer

Heavenly Father Lord, I want to thank You so much for allowing us to hear Your Word.  Father God, You have given us this grace to believe in You.  Father God, You are the Triune God Who is with us in spirit, and it’s truly by the grace of God, only by Jesus Christ, that we can have oneness with other people.  Fill us with Your Holy Spirit, and in all circumstances, allow us to live for You and for the 237 Healing and Summit.  We love You so much and we thank You. In Jesus Christ’s name we pray, amen.