 We'll just get into our study. Let's look at verses 20 through 26 here in John chapter 17. I'll read that portion of scripture to you and then we'll get into our study. John chapter 17, beginning at verse 20, reading to verse 26. Jesus said, I do not pray for these alone, but also for those who will believe in me through their word that they all may be one. As you father are in me and I in you, that they also may be one in us, that the world may believe that you sent me. And the glory which you gave me, I have given them that they may be one just as we are one. I in them and you in me, that they may be made perfect in one, and that the world may know that you've sent me and have loved them as you've loved me. Father, I desire that they also whom you gave me may be with me where I am, that they may behold my glory which you have given me. For you loved me before the foundation of the world. O righteous father, the world has not known you, but I have known you, and these have known that you sent me. And I have declared to them your name and will declare it that the love with which you loved me may be in them and I in them. So as I've mentioned to you when we did our introduction here into chapter 17, chapter 17 here in the gospel of John records the longest prayer of Jesus. And I shared with you that this prayer can be divided into three sections. Verses one through five records Jesus' prayer, a prayer that we call a prayer of consecration. And it included his personal requests. Verses six through 19 records his prayer for what we would call his present disciples. And in verses 20 through 26, Jesus is now praying for his future disciples. So notice how he begins here in verse 20 by saying, he do not pray for these alone, but also for those who will believe in me through their word. So he's saying I'm praying for those who will believe in me. And so that tells us something, that tells us that the work of Jesus Christ is intended to continue past his death and past his resurrection. In other words, he was not simply bringing forth a message that was pertaining to that time period only. You see the gospel is a message that is to continue to be preached to every generation. It wasn't just for the first generation. And it wasn't just for the nation of Israel. There are those who believe that the gospel should have remained in Israel. They believe that it was just a message that should have remained within the borders of that nation. But over the years, there are many who have said that it should have stayed there because Christianity has ruined, and I'm sure some of you guys have heard this before, I have, they have said that Christianity has ruined beautiful nature cultures. I mean, I've gone to rather to Hawaii on more than one occasion and there are those who will actually complain and they will say that Christianity ruined this beautiful culture. Christianity ruined this beautiful, beautiful nation and all. And they get upset about that. They argue that cultures have their own morality, their own beauty, and they should be left alone. They shouldn't have been assaulted by these European Christians and all who sent missionaries and destroyed the beauty of the culture of that island or whatever. Now, some of you may remember this. There was an 18th century philosopher, his name was Rousseau. And he spoke of something called the noble savage. That's something that was common talk back in the 50s and 60s. As a matter of fact, there are still those who are aware of that term, the noble savage. I wonder how many of you have heard that. It may not be common now, but it was common when I was growing up. And you'd hear that term, the noble savage. I came out of a philosopher by the name of Rousseau. It was called the myth of the noble savage. It was from the 17th century. And so Rousseau believed the original man was innately good and free from sin or the concept of right and wrong. And he wrote that those who were called savages were not brutal, but in fact were noble because they hadn't been corrupted by civilization. There were many people who believed that. You were taught that in your college courses and all. So they said that Christianity ruined culture. I remember true story of a man who was speaking to a native on one of the, in Fiji. And this man was an atheist and he was speaking to the Fijian. And he said to him, I really feel sorry for this beautiful island and you beautiful people because Christians came and ruined your beautiful culture. Once again, this is a guy who believed in what was called the myth of the noble savage. He says Christianity ruined your beautiful culture. And as he was speaking to this island or the islanders said, do you see that stone there? And he looks over and there's a stone kind of like a pillar and it's carved out to have kind of like a trough. And he says, do you see that there? And the atheist said to him, yes, I see it. And the Fijian said to him, do you know what that is? And so the atheist said, no, I don't have a clue what that is, what is that? He said, what that is, it is a place where we would take prisoners that we had taken in war and we would place their head inside of that rock. You see that cave, yeah, concave. We would put their head in that rock and then with a war club, we would hit their head, smash it and then eat the brains of the person we just killed. And he says, and I'm telling you this, if Christianity had not come to this island, right now I'd be eating your brains. And so when you have people who are saying that Christianity has no value, they have no clue what they're talking about. They have no idea what they're speaking about because Christianity, the message of the gospel, the message of the cross, the message of the love of God, that message was intended not to stay in Jerusalem. It was to go through all Southern Israel. It was going, it was supposed to go to Samaria. It was supposed to go into the uttermost parts of the earth. It was to be proclaimed and shared with everybody. It wasn't intended to remain there in Israel. It's a message that is to be communicated. In Matthew 24, verse 14, it says this gospel of the kingdom will be preached in all the world as a witness to all the nations, and then the end will come. In Acts chapter one, verse eight, Jesus made it very clear, you shall receive power after that the Holy Spirit comes upon you and you shall be witnesses to me in Jerusalem, Judea, Samaria and until the uttermost parts of the earth. And so Christianity was intended to be communicated. It was intended to be taken out of Israel. So Jesus is praying and he's praying for every person who at that time was unconverted. Now when you think about it, whom he's praying for right now, and again when he says in verse 20 of chapter 17 of John, I do not pray for these alone. He was already speaking about and praying for his present disciples. But he said I do not pray for these alone but also for those who will believe in me through their word who will believe in me, future believers. So he's praying for every person who at that time was still unconverted. That would include men like Mark who wrote the gospel of Mark. It would include Luke. It would include men like Timothy and Titus, James, Jude. It would include a young man by the name of Saul. He was praying for all future disciples. And so he's speaking concerning that in his prayer. And then he says in verse 20, he says that his disciples are to be trained in order to further his work on earth. Because notice how he says that he's praying for those who will believe in him through their word. So he selected them, he trained them in order that he might send them into the world. So for a moment, I wanna share with you a bit about that. How are these future believers to come to faith in Jesus Christ? How did they come to faith in Christ? They came to faith in Christ through the faithful preaching of the gospel by his apostles. They came to understand the incredible importance of the message that had been entrusted to them, these present disciples. And they took that message to a world that needed to hear it. Jesus had said, he who hears my word and believes in the one who sent him has everlasting life. And so Jesus Christ is telling his disciples to go forth with this message and proclaim it to a world that needs him. In John's gospel, we saw this in chapter six, verses 66 through 69, where it said from that time many of his disciples went back and walked with him no more. And Jesus said to the 12, do you also wanna go away? But Simon Peter answered him, Lord to whom shall we go? He went on to say, you have the words of eternal life. Also, we have come to believe and know that you are the Christ, the son of the living God. So the message had been entrusted to the apostles. But that message that had been entrusted to them is to be taken to a world that has yet to hear who he is. People are saved through faith in Jesus Christ as he's revealed in the gospel. So when Jesus was praying this prayer, he was praying not only for the future disciples like those mentioned that would be within the next few years, but he was also praying for me. And he was praying for you. Because we came to faith because these men were faithful in the spreading of the gospel. Remember Matthew 28, 19 and 20, how it says go therefore and make disciples of all the nations, baptizing them in the name of the Father and the Son and of the Holy Spirit. Teaching them to observe all things that I've commanded you and lo, I'm with you always, even to the end of the age. Go into the entire world and preach the gospel. And in the power of the Holy Spirit, they preach that gospel to the whole known world. It's interesting how in the book of Romans in chapter 15, verse 20, Paul said, I have made it my aim to preach the gospel, not where Christ was named, lest I should build on another man's foundation. Paul went out to preach the gospel where the name of Christ had yet to be heard. Remember how that when he was in Thessalonica, that there were people who had lodged an accusation against Paul and his team. And they were upset at them. And when they were lodging the accusation, this is what they said. It's found in Acts 17, verse six. It's one of those beautiful verses where it says, these who have turned the world upside down have come here to the church, the Christian, the believer, and actually turned the world, what they called upside down, but what we would call right side up by taking the message. And they were going from place to place. They started in Jerusalem, spread through Judea, went to Samaria and into the uttermost parts of the earth. It's increasingly difficult in our day to continue teaching the message of the Bible. Many don't regard the Bible as God's word. As a matter of fact, you hear in college today and other classrooms that the Bible is simply a book of superstitious beliefs. There are those who say, well, I believe it, but they never spend any time reading it. And when they hear it, they're indifferent to it. According to an April 14th, 2017 Pew Research Study, well, about four in 10 Christians, 39%, say the Bible's text is the word of God and should be taken literally, 36%, say it should not be interpreted literally or express another or no opinion. Now listen to this, a separate 18% of professing Christians view the Bible as a book written by men and not by God. And so the majority of those who are polled replied in a way that would say they didn't really believe the Bible is God's word. And so many pastors have become aware of that. And so what has happened is churches have become more of an entertainment center, a culture center, if you will. And some will go to church if it's convenient or if it's entertaining. There are others who choose to go to church when they think what's gonna be spoken of is something they want to hear. And then there are others who go expecting the teachings to agree with their already settled opinions. The problem is, is when you go selecting what you're gonna take, what you're gonna believe, what you're gonna act on, then you're not gonna have the peace and the hope and the joy that God desires you to have. Because if you want comfort and peace, if you want hope, you need to remember that's found in God's word. In Psalm 119, 114, the scripture says, you are my hiding place, my shield. I hope in your word. In Psalm 119, 147, I rise before the dawning of the morning and cry for help. I hope in your word. The Psalmist in Psalm 56 verse 11 said, in God, I have put my trust. I will not be afraid. What can man do to me? If there's anything that we need right now in our society, guys, it's the church to once again come back to the word and to have hope and faith and trust in it right now. Because a lot of people have lost that. I am blessed. I'm blessed that you're here with us. I'm blessed that there are those watching online as we study the word of God. Because that's how you get hope. And that's how your faith is expanded. And that's where your joy is. That's where your comfort comes from. There are a lot of people who don't have those things who profess to know Christ. And I'm promising you this is true. The reason they're not having and experiencing those things is they're not in God's word. They're not reading it through because God's word gives you joy. God's word gives you peace. God's word gives you direction. God's word gives you strength. God's word feeds your soul. If you're dry and you're thirsty, God is the one who quenches you through the word of God. And so many people have failed to remember that or realize that. You see, Jesus prayed. And he prayed for those who had believed in him through their witness, the things that they said about him, the preaching of the cross. And that's what he's praying for. Now, when he's praying, what is he saying specifically? Notice verse 21. He says in his prayer that they all may be one as you Father are in me and I in you, that they also may be one in us that the world may believe that you sent me. So he prays for the unity of believers, a unity that is centered on Jesus Christ. We need to remember there's no division between Jesus and his Father and there should be no division in the church. God's plan is for believers to work together and to share this message throughout the world. And to do so requires a unity of spirit and cooperation in the body of Christ. I've had the opportunity or the blessing to be able to go to various countries in the face of the earth in various places. I've been in China, I've been in India, I've been in Egypt, I've been in a lot of different places and I've encountered Christians in so many of these countries. And I have to tell you, when you encounter a believer in a country that is especially anti-Christ or in opposition to the gospel, when you encounter a believer, I have to tell you this is a refreshing moment to have somebody of like mind, somebody of like spirit. And it doesn't matter whether they're in a Calvary Chapel or if they're in a Baptist church, it doesn't matter. What matters is that you're centered on the things that do matter. And that I think is a very important thing for us to remember today. In Psalm 133 verse one, behold how good and how pleasant it is for brethren to dwell together in unity. In 1 Corinthians one verse 10, Paul said it like this, he said, I plead with you, brethren, by the name of our Lord Jesus Christ, that you all speak the same thing and that there be no divisions among you, but that you'd be perfectly joined together in the same mind, in the same judgment. Believers are to be united and we're united in our common love for Jesus Christ. And our common love for Jesus Christ is what propels us to give out his message. And that's what the church is supposed to do. And that's what Jesus prayed we would do. I believe very strongly that we need to avoid uniting around causes and concerns that divide and inflame. We need to unite around our love for Jesus Christ. We need to be careful, especially in this day, to guard our unity in him. Competition in churches has erupted. And it's carnal and it keeps people from coming to the Lord Jesus Christ. And we need to be aware that there's only one thing that matters in the end is that we dwell together in unity in the essential things of Christ. We may have differences as it relates to certain practices in church and that's okay. You know, somebody believes that you should, we'll say baptize infants, I don't, they do. But do you believe in the Lord Jesus Christ? Is he your savior? Let's center our attention on that. There are different things that people can believe that I wanna agree with and they wanna agree with me. I believe very strongly that the rapture of the church is the next prophetic event on the calendar of God. There's nothing else to take place until Jesus says come up here and we're gone. I believe that with all of my heart and I pray it happens tonight. I know some of you are praying it happens right now so you can get out of here, but I believe that. But there are others who say, oh no, it's gonna happen at this time or it's gonna happen at that time. The bottom line is, is we can agree to disagree agreeably. They'll discover when the rapture happens, I was right and then we'll be brothers even deeper than that. But see the bottom line is believing that God sent Jesus Christ. Notice he says that the world may believe that you sent me. The unity of our spirit, the unity of our intention to bring Christ to the world is what God will be using to speak to the unsaved world. We guard our unity that we might safeguard ourselves from stumbling people from knowing who Jesus Christ is. We safeguard our unity so that we're not arguing and bickering and causing dissension because there are few things in the world that will turn people away from Christ quicker than seeing carnal, angry, divisive Christians fighting with one another. The world already has enough argumentation. The world already has enough anger. And for them to see Christians arguing sometimes it grieves my soul. Perhaps some of you go on some of the social media and you might see it. It happens a lot on Facebook where somebody will write a scripture and just each wanted to write a scripture and then you get some Google theologian who wants to argue about what that scripture actually means. And before you know it, where the guy was just saying, let's love Jesus, you've got somebody's parsing every word and wanting to argue. And my friend Tony Clark, he can't post anything. And I've told him, I said, Tony, you started fights all the time. You write something and somebody wants to fight with you. It happens all the time with them. And he'll write me back privately and say, I know Pastor Davis is crazy, isn't it? I'll say, yeah, what's crazy is you keep doing it, man. You gotta stop this. But the world looks at it and they see these crazy Christians fighting over things they don't understand. And so it actually divides. And so unity is very important to love one another and to get along. It's a very important thing. Remember, there was an issue. Do you guys remember there was an issue in the church of Philippi, I'll remind you. It's found in Philippians chapter four verse two. I'll read this to you. In Philippians chapter four verse two, this is what Paul wrote. He said, I implore Eodia and I implore Sintiqi to be of the same mind in the Lord. Now, I've shared this before. The way it would work during the time of the writing of the letters is this. Paul would write a letter. He wrote a letter to the Philippian church. And so the messenger would come bringing the letter and would come to the pastor. So the messenger carrying Paul's letter comes to the pastor of the church of Philippi. And the pastor would take Paul's letter and when the church gathered together, the pastor would read the letter, the whole letter to the assembled congregation. And so when you read the book of Philippians, you start in verse one of chapter one, the introduction and all. And you're reading the various things. And I as a pastor would be reading Paul's words. Everybody's seated there listening. And as I'm reading, they're nodding their head in appreciation, they're hearing news about Paul. This is all doctrine teaching them things. And as they're listening, the leadership would be there. The elders, the deaconesses, everybody would be present in the church. And here comes the pastor to this portion of scripture, what we call chapter four, verse two. And in the midst of all of this reading, he says, I implore Eodia, I implore Sintakey to be of the same mind in the Lord. What did he just do? He called them out. He called Eodia. Those are women's names, by the way. Eodia and Sintakey. How many Eodias do you know? Anyway, I know a few Sintakes, no, I don't. But those are female names. These two women were arguing in the church. It was so bad everybody knew about it. They were more than likely arguing over essentials of doctrine. And so he desires them to agree to the same truths in order that they be reconciled. It seems that there were false teachers who had begun influencing one of them, at least one of them, and it had begun an argument. And so they're moving in the wrong direction. And so he calls them out. And he says, you need to get it together. You need to understand. And that's what he's saying when he says to be of the same mind in the Lord. In other words, instead of resting in your false opinions about God, you need to get back in the word and have unity of the spirit in this. And that's how it would work. The church is to have unity in the essential things, but we're never to have compromise. In essentials, it's been said, unity. In non-essentials, liberty, but in all things, charity. One of the most profound comments made regarding the early church came from the lips of a man named Aristides, sent by the emperor Hadrian to spy out those strange creatures known as Christians. Having seen them in action, Aristides returned with a mixed report, but his immortal words to the emperor have echoed down through history. And this is what he said, behold, how they love one another. That was the mark of the church, guys. I've said it before. By this shall all men know you are my disciples if you have loved one for another. Every church has a reputation. Every church congregation has a reputation. Every individual believer has a reputation. We all do. Every person in this room beginning with me and all through the room, all of us are known for something, all of us, every one of us. If I bring up your name to somebody and I say, do you know so-and-so? They have in their mind an opinion about you. If I years ago I was at a pastors conference just to illustrate this and I was teaching in the conference. And I said this. I said, everybody has a reputation. Everybody does. Pastor Chuck was still alive at that time. So I said, if you say Pastor Chuck Smith, people's opinions, normally you hear them say he's a loving man, he's a grace-filled man. That was Chuck. I said, if you say John Corson, whenever you say John Corson to me, I think of a big brother, kind of a warm man, he's very warm. The kind of guy that would have his big arms hanging over a fence talking to you as a neighbor, that's John. John is just a loving guy. I said, when you talk to me about Raul Rees, I think it tackles. I mean, everybody stimulates some. Raul didn't like that, but I thought it was funny. But everybody's got a reputation. Everybody does. When you look at churches, churches have reputations. You look at the Corinthians, they were reputed for their carnality and their sin. You look at the Thessalonians, they were reputed for their faith that was going throughout the whole world. Every church has a reputation. Every believer has one. Every one of us in this room is known for something. So here's the thing, what are you known for? And what am I known for? What is the mark of my life? What is the birthmark? What is the identifiable trait? When people speak of you, when they speak of me, no, that's not a condemnation at all, unless you feel you need to change. If you do, then praise the Lord, in Him we can change. But what is it you want? What is it you want to be known for? What is it? Because the way I'm trying to live now and I've been doing this for years and I've said this before, is I want to live in such a way that people will say kind things about me. I want to live in that way to deserve the comments. I want to have that. And I would like to be known for being gracious and I would like to be known for love. I would like to be known for compassion. I would like to be known for holding fast to truth. There are things that I want to be known for. What do you want to be known for? And what is the church supposed to be known for? And what did Jesus pray for us? That they may be one, even as we are one. That their hearts might be knit together. That there might be unity. Because in a world that's fragmented and destructive, the church needs to remain strong and united. And He prayed for us that we would have a oneness so that the world may see that and be one. We're supposed to be united in Christ. And what unites us is His truth. That's what He wants us to know. So He was sending His men out to preach the gospel. They would be united in Him in the truth. So notice verse 22. He goes on and says the glory which you gave me, I've given them that they may be one just as we are one. And what glory would He be speaking of? Well, He's speaking of them having the same mission He had. He's speaking of a life of service, a life of sacrifice that led Him all the way to the cross. We saw in the opening of the prayer in verse one and verses four and five, we saw that these verses spoke of Him having obedience going to the cross, going to heaven. And believers are to live a life of service and sacrifice that results in glory to Him and also to us. In Hebrews chapter two, verses nine and 10, the writer said, we see Jesus who has made a little lower than the angels for the suffering of death crowned with glory and honor that He by the grace of God might taste death for everyone for it was fitting for Him for whom are all things and by whom are all things and bringing many sons to glory to make the captain of their salvation perfect their sufferings. Believers are to live a life of service and sacrifice. It results in glory to Him but it also results in glory to us. First Peter 510, may the God of all grace who called us to His eternal glory by Christ Jesus after you have suffered a while, perfect establish, strengthen and settle you. He says in verse 23, I in them, you and me that they may be made perfect, complete matured, perfect in one and that the world may know that you've sent me and have loved them as you have loved me as God is love and Jesus is God in the flesh even so His followers are rooted in love. We are in the true vine. His love is a fruit that is produced in our lives. I really believe that, I really do. And I got saved as a young man and unloving man, a hard hearted young man. I got more pleasure out of making girlfriends cry by being mean to them than by treating them kindly. I was bitter and angry, so bitter and angry that I turned everybody away from me and was very unloved for good reason. But when I got saved, I started praying. It's been almost 50 years that I've been praying this. It's hard to believe when I say that, I say that out loud and I go, man, that's a long time. It's almost 50 years. I got saved in December of 1970. I'll be celebrating 50 years of walking with Christ pretty soon. I've been praying for almost 50 years for one thing, for one thing, God answers prayer. I know He does, but it's been to be a loving person. I've been praying for that for years. When I was in the army, I'd take walks and I'd take runs and that would be my prayer. Father, help me to love. Father, help me to love. God helped me to love because I saw love as a weakness. I didn't see it as a strength. I saw vulnerability as being a weakness, something not to be admired and something that was feminine and not masculine. I came from a background like that. My dad never said, I love you. My dad didn't show affection. I'm not blaming him for anything. He was a great man. He showed it in a variety of ways. He just never said it. I had actually observed my father, watched him to see how he treated a woman in order that I might learn how to be a husband to my wife. And I saw certain things in my father every once in a while over my entire life. He might say something that might give me a hint of this is how a man ought to be. But dad was a very quiet man. I didn't know how to love my mother. My mother went through a bunch of illnesses, went through some problems with pharmaceuticals that she used. She was never addicted to pharmaceuticals or anything like that. She just had to take certain ones because she had epilepsy and she had lupus and she had a variety of illnesses. And so when she was a younger woman becoming a cripple in her 20s, she got bitter. And when she got bitter, she got angry. And when she got angry, she'd take it out on the kids. And every once in a while, she'd take it out on us in a very brutal way. And so I grew up thinking that love was something that only some people had. And kindness was something that you didn't experience very often. And so manipulation and control became very important to me in relationships. So I could keep people on arms distance away and not have the entanglements of emotion. But then I got saved. And I'm reading about Jesus. And I'm seeing he didn't have that. I'm seeing that he was warm and he was loving and he was tender and he would cry. He Jesus cried. And I would say, whoa, this is heavy. He cried. He cried over a friend by the name of Lazarus. And when you're brand new in the Lord and you're reading and it simply says Jesus wept. And you think about that. And for me, he wept. I never saw my father cry until I was in my 20s. And he was gonna go into the hospital and he asked me to pray for him because he was already a Christian. And he cried because he was afraid that he might not survive the operation. It's the only time I ever saw my father cry. The only time. And I was already in my 20s, like 25 years old. My dad didn't cry. My dad didn't show emotion. And so I didn't show emotion. I know that some of you know me. He said, no, you tear up easy. I didn't always. I prayed and I said, make me like you. And if Jesus could weep over a friend, I wanna weep over my friends. And if Jesus wept over a city as he did with Jerusalem, he cried and said, then I wanna have a heart that's tender. See, that's how I learned how to pray. And that's how I ask God change me from being the hard-hearted, harsh, unloving, unkind, angry. Make me like you, Lord. And Jesus prayed for us guys that we would have hearts like that. That we would wanna bring him glory. That we would take his message to people. That we would love one another so that the world that is so lost in such anger, such darkness might be one that they might know God. And that's why I've said for many years, love is the birthmark of the believer. This prayer that he's praying, by the way, as he's praying, he's not speaking of a moral or ethical perfection. He's praying about us realizing what would be called an ideal. He's saying, may they become fully mature. May they be fully grown. May they have genuine unity in me. And may this be a unity of love. May it be rooted in their souls. May it be manifested by their lives. In verse 24, Father, I desire that they also, whom you gave me, may be with me where I am. Father, may they be with me forever. Remember he had earlier said in my father's house for many mansions, I go and prepare a place for you. If I go and prepare a place for you, I'll come again and receive you unto myself that where I am there, you may be also. He said, may they be with me forever. He wants us to be with him in heaven. And not just temporarily. He wants us to be with him for all time. He doesn't want us to be separated from him. He wants us to be with him. You know, one of the things in just using human illustration, one of the things as a husband that gives me great pleasure, is just by having my wife near me. Just by having her near me. And I was telling my son, David, once, David was over and visiting and raiding our refrigerator and stealing money out of my wallet. But he was, my son was over. And we were talking in our front room. My wife Marie was next to me and I was seated in my place that I have. And we were talking and talking about affection. My son and I, this was not that long ago and we were talking about affection. And I said, son, I said, your mom and I are not openly affectionate. We're not. And that's true. You'll never see Marie and me holding hands making out on a beach, okay? I mean, we're not that. That's not us. We get kind of grossed by that. We wanna throw water on the people. So I told him, I said, your mom and I are not really affectionate, openly affectionate. And he says, yes you are. And I looked at him and I said, what do you mean? What do you mean? He says, yes you are. He says, look at you. And Marie was sitting on the couch and she had her foot out over, pointed towards me and I was sitting with my foot holding her foot. We were holding feet, said a holding hand. He said, dad, you're always that way. He says, you don't know that? He said, every time you sit down and mom's near you, you've got your foot on her foot or you've got your hand next to her. He said, you are very affectionate. You just don't know it. Well, that's gotta be the Lord. Because in my mind I'm saying I'm not. But in activity, I guess I must be because that's what I've been praying for for all these years. Lord, can I have an openness? Can I have a warmth? Can I learn to expose my heart? Can I learn to be real? That's been my prayer forever. And that's the mark of a believer who loves Jesus openly and loves others. And Jesus wants to be with us. And he wants it not temporarily, he wants it forever. In Psalm 16, verse 11, the Psalmist said, you will show me the path of life in your presence is fullness of joy. At your right hand are pleasures forevermore. In verse 25 and 26, a righteous father, the world has not known you, but I have known you. And these have known that you sent me. And I have declared to them your name. And we'll declare it that the love with which you loved me may be in them and I in them. And so righteous father, the world has not known you. The world does not know God and cannot know God on their own. They can't understand him. They wouldn't be able to know him even if they encountered him if he didn't reveal himself. Romans 3, 10 and 11 says it like this, there's none righteous, no, not one. There's none who understands. There's none who seeks after God. In Job 11, seven and eight, it reads, can you fathom the mysteries of God? Can you probe the limits of the Almighty? They are higher than the heavens. What can you do? They are deeper than the depths of the grave. What can you know? If God doesn't reveal himself, you by searching will never find him. You cannot find him. He's not like I was with my kids when we played hide and seek. I intended to be found. And so I would hide in a place that they eventually would look. Or if they were hiding from me, I would say something silly, they'd start giggling, I'd know where they were. That's how it worked. It was a lot of fun. But God isn't playing cosmic hide and seek because if God decided to hide, no man would find him. And so what he does is he reveals himself to us. And he did that through his word. He does it by his spirit. He does it through Jesus Christ. And so the mission of the church is to reveal him through proclaiming his word. We take the gospel and we read it and we look at it and we take it apart. And so one of the things that we, the church, are to do, all of us, is to know his word well enough to present it to people. And so when people ask the question, why do you believe the way that you do, you're equipped to be able to give them an answer. So you spend time in the word. I learned to do that, began to learn to do that as a young believer because I had encounters with cult members who came to my house when I was living at my parents' house that I encountered in the army when I was serving in the military. And that came to my house when I got out of the military and was living in Whittier and they were coming to the door and they would knock on the door and they would talk to me. And I began to wanna be equipped to give an answer to these people because they would come and they were bringing what I knew was to be false but I didn't know how to defend my faith. I didn't know how to present it. And so I asked God, can you help me? And what he did is he led me to a Christian bookstore and I walked into the store. This is back in 1972, 73, about 73. I went into a store and I went to the counter and I said, I've got people coming to my door giving me a message. I don't think it's true. I don't know how to answer it. Can you help me? And they pointed out Walter Martin's Kingdom of the Cults and that's how I began to learn to study. That's how I learned because I wanted to be prepared to give an answer for the hope that lies within me with nearness and gentleness to anyone who would ask. That's what I wanted to do. And then I discovered that Walter Martin was teaching a class at a church that was only half hour drive from my house. And I went and I sat under Walter Martin, the author of this book. I sat under his teaching for a year. Every Sunday he had a class and every Sunday I was there taking notes, learning about the essentials of the faith because I wanted to know how can I present the gospel clearly to the lost because they are lost and they need Jesus Christ. And if I don't know how to explain to them these things then I haven't succeeded in what God has called me to do. I'm supposed to go into the world and proclaim the gospel but what if I don't know it very well? Then I said, I better learn it. And that's what motivated me. And over time what happened is I would be speaking to people and that's when my dad one day said to me how I didn't know you could do that. And I said, do what? He said, I didn't know you could explain things. I said, explain things. I didn't know you could do that. That you could explain the Bible and make it understandable. And I said, really? Really? See my mom was different than my dad. My mom would say, David, can't you give an answer to a question in a short form? Why do you have to give me all this information I'm not asking for? My dad appreciated it. My mom was always trying to tamp me down a little bit. My guys and staff know this because they'll ask me a question and I'll say how long of an answer do you want? Because we can go into this if you'd like for some time because I wanted to know how to give an answer. I wanted to know how to share the gospel. I wanted to be prepared for those things and that's what Jesus prayed for. So that desire in my heart is an answer to his prayer. But he wants it for you too. For you to be hungry for his word, to be able to give an answer to those who ask concerning the hope that's within you. He wants you to be prepared to be able to do that so that when that person knocks on the door, you don't pretend that you're not there. You don't tell your wife, hold your breath. They might hear you breathing. So you can visit with them and hear their questions and you can be honest like I am. If they ask a question I can answer. I'll say, you know what, come back next week. Let me have an answer for you. Because that was what provoked me to get into the word to study and to seek answers. That was my early Christian life and that's still my life because I still have people who ask me questions that I can answer. And I still go and search the answer out so I might know it. Because that's what the Lord prayed for. The world has not known you. The world doesn't know you. And that's why you would have us to know your word so that we might take this out and share it. And also that we might live it so that people might see a quality of life that we have that demonstrates that we're separated. We want to reveal the Lord to the world by His word and even through our lives. You see, there are still people that Jesus prayed for who have yet to receive Him. The world needs the love of God revealed through Jesus Christ. We know that over the course of 20 centuries the gospel is spread throughout the world. We also know that ultimately it arrived on our shores and we have been blessed to hear and to believe. And as I close, I like to close by saying I'm eternally grateful for the faithful preaching of God's word that gave me life in Jesus. And I want to say thank you to the Lord for giving me a pastor named Chuck Smith who encouraged me to remain faithful to teaching the word of God. And what we're doing right now guys is we're simply trying to continue the work that Jesus began and all I'm trying to do as I close is invite all of you to be part of that, to know His word, to live His word, to give His word because in the end, Jesus wants us to be with Him. He wants us to be with Him forever. When I met the young woman who became my wife she was a new Christian and she asked me a question. She said to me, will we be married in heaven? Now we were gonna get married but she wanted to know will we be married in heaven? And I remember laughing when she said that. I said, are you kidding me? We're gonna be happy. Will we be married in heaven? Of course not. There is no marriage in heaven. We'll be like the angels. There's no need to reproduce. There's no reproducing in heaven. No, but it was kind of a cut and dry. I thought she was kidding. She started to cry. My girl started to cry. I'm looking at her, totally puzzled. Why are you? Because she said I wanna be with you forever. Nobody ever said anything like that to me. Are you kidding me? Most people couldn't handle me for a day, let alone eternity. But you know, as I grew older, I came to realize what an unbelievable thing to say that someone could love you so much they wanna be with you always. That's what Jesus said to you. Oh, Father, that they may be with me forever. What a savior. What a savior. Thank you for having me. Thank you so much. I really had so much he loves you.