Last night we were served by Jeannie the genie.

Last time it was the Big Bad Wolf.  We all like the genie better.  We were eating at the Magic Time Machine, my wife and two children.   The Magic Time Machine is a different kind of restaurant.  On the outside it looks normal, but once you enter you get the idea that a drunk pretzel designer built it.   Unless you have a guide you’ll get lost.

All the staff are dressed and act like some character out of the fairy tales or some Disney character.  There’s a lot of carrying on. It’s not a place for a person without a sense of humor.  We like to go their occasionally because you kind of lose yourself in the atmosphere and start acting like a kid again.

We all need this from time to time, especially Christians.  A lot of believers take themselves and life too seriously, and almost, it seems, feel like enjoying life is a sin.

The writer of Ecclesiastes says that "There is nothing better for a man, than he should eat and drink, and that he should make his soul enjoy good in his labor" (2:24).  And again in 3:13, "And also that every man should eat and drink, and enjoy the good of all his labor, it is the gift of God."

God meant for us to enjoy life and the earth He has created.   We are sanctified, not petrified.  One of the main criticisms the Pharisees leveled against Jesus’ disciples was that they seemed too happy.   Joy should be one of the chief characteristic of believers. The New Testament is a book of Joy.  The angel who announced the birth of Jesus said, "Behold I bring you tidings of great joy." Jesus said to His disciples, "These things have I spoken unto you, that your joy might remain in you, and that your joy may be full" (John 15:12).

This joy is to be ours even in times of trouble.  James said, "My brethren, count it all joy when ye fall into divers temptations" (1:2).   Imagine such a thing!  Only a Christian can pull that off.  In his first epistle John said, "And these things we write unto you , that your joy may be full" (1:4). And tense of the verb "joy" means to be completely and continually full.

Joy is a result of Knowing God and Christ as our Savior, of knowing that our sins are forgiven, of having fellowship with each other, and knowing that in the life we have victory and in the life to come heaven.

Joyless hearts and laughless faces will never make the world thirsty for our Lord.  So for your own sake and for the testimony of our Lord, LOOSEN UP AND LAUGH.

Through the years I have met a few people that I love to hear pray. When I was sixteen I had a mentor who insisted we pray when we got together. When he prayed it was always as though it were just he and God, God became so real, I would listen in awe. I have a pastor friend that I would pay just to have him travel with me and let me listen to him pray. I feel close to God when he prays. I enjoy reading the prayers of Joseph Parker of the City Temple of London (a contemporary of Spurgeon). To have heard him actually utter those prayers would have been a great blessing.

But do you know who I would like to have heard pray? Of course, Jesus. Who can imagine what it must have been like to hear the Son pray to the Father, God to God!

In Luke 11 after hearing Jesus pray, they plead, "Lord, teach us to pray." Now these were men who had prayed all their lives, but it’s almost as if upon hearing Jesus pray, they thought to themselves: "If that’s prayer, we have never done it!"

While we cannot literally "hear" Jesus prayer, we can in a sense listen in as He prays to His Father in John 17.

"Father, Glorify Thy Son." The hour had come, the hour that had been predestined from before the world existed, the hour of passion, of the kangaroo court in Pilate’s hall, the beating, the crown of thorns, the mocking and shame, the inexpressible pain of the cross, the nameless horrors of descending into Hades. That’s what the HOUR meant for Jesus.

And so He prays that the Father will glorify Him, honor Him, manifest Himself in His Son.

Some observations about this prayer:

1. It is barren of selfishness, "in order that the Son may glorify the Father." Christ was not seeking His own glory as an end in itself, but as a means to a greater end—glorifying, honoring, revealing, and manifesting the Father. And this must always be our end: To glorify the Father. Never are we took seek glory for ourselves except that we may in turn glorify God.

2. It is based on Success. "I have finished the work Thou gavest me to do." What a wonderful thing to be able to say. Jesus’ words call to mind the words of Paul in 2 Timothy 4: "I have finished my course." How are we doing? Will we finish the work God gave us to do?

3. It is burdened with sacrifice. When Jesus was asking to be glorified, he was asking to be crucified! The way to glory is not found in clouds of angels, blasts of heavenly trumpets, claps of thunder—it is found in a manger, in a carpenter’s shop, on a cross. The darker the shadow cast by the cross, the brighter the glory of the Son. Not the applause of angels but the catcalls of the world was the path to Jesus’ glory.

And guess what? He has given us that same glory! I wonder what that means?

Yesterday I had lunch with some friends. I was wearing a new tie. Before the meal was over, I had some kind of sauce on my tie. This afternoon I put on jeans and a new T-shirt and walked across the street from my hotel to Wendy’s and got a Frosty. When I got back to my room, there was frosty on my shirt. I don’t know how it got there. But it happens all the time. At home I eat in dirty clothes-I always end up wearing what I eat. Kaye refuses to eat near me. And planes are terrible-I’m always spilling Coke on me and sometimes my neighbor. Once I finished a meal on a plane, and was I proud. I didn’t spill a drop. But when the flight attendant picked up my tray, she dumped it on me. I guess she thought, "Hmm, he doesn’t have any food on him," then made sure I did.

I have a problem: I can’t come into contact food without becoming contaminated by it. I thought by now I would have learned better, but now I’m approaching the age when drooling comes naturally. I don’t have a chance.

I have a spiritual problem akin to this. I have a hard time coming into contact with the world without becoming contaminated. That’s why In John 17, Jesus prays that the Father will protect his followers as He leaves them behind in a world that hates them and that they will be sanctified by the Father. They don’t belong to the world but they are in the world to be witnesses. He is praying that we can live in CONTACT with the world without becoming CONTAMINATED by the world.

The world is a dangerous place for Christians; it hates us because we don’t belong to it and because we belong to Him. Then it seeks to make us like itself. Let’s yield to the Father’s prayer and not allow our lives to be contaminated by contact with the world; let us live holy lives in an unholy world.

I’m looking out my hotel room in Colorado Springs at Pike’s Peak.  There are still some streaks of snow on the top, like ice cream running down the chin of a child. I’m preaching this week at the Music Evangelism Foundation Bible Conference.  This is the 17^th year of the conference and I’m spoken at every one of them.  You might consider planning your vacation around this conference; it’s the last full week in June and there’s always great music and preaching.  Next year Stuart and Jill Briscoe will be here, with Eric Alexander from Scotland, plus yours truly.  People from all over attend.   It’s the finest Bible Conference I know of.

I’m speaking five times on the High-Priestly Prayer in John 17.  It’s my first time to do so and it has been a tremendous blessing to me.  We’ll have the tape series available later this summer.

This "Lord’s Prayer" is a picture and preview of Christ’s intercession before the Father for all believers.  I appreciate it when people are praying for me.  This week a friend of mine has sought me out every time I’m to preach and prayed for me.  That means a lot.  But I tell you what means more than anything: to know that my Great High Priest is at this very moment interceding for me—and His prayers are always answered!  This is both humbling and encouraging.  Humbling to think that the Lord Himself would care enough for me to prayer for me before the Father; encouraging to know that whatever I may be going through at the moment, that I’m not alone.  He is praying for me—and you.

This week I'm in Olive Branch, MS, just outside Memphis.  I preached Sunday morning on the Prodigal Son, which really isn't about the prodigal son.   In Luke 15 Jesus is not telling us that boys sometimes become prodigals. We don't need God to tell us that.  I already knew it-- I've been one and I've had one.   By the way, not all prodigals are boys, and not all prodigals leave home.   They sometimes hang around and make life miserable for everyone else.

No, Jesus is not here revealing that boys sometimes become prodigals.  The main character in this drama is not the boy, but the FATHER.   This is not a parable of the prodigal son, but a picture of the Father's heart.

The great and unique revelation Jesus brought to us about God is that He is a Father.  Reading the first few verses of chapter 15 makes it clear that Jesus is describing to the self-righteous Pharisees what kind of God our God is.

He is a Father who grieves over every prodigal one of us.  He is a Father who receives us just as we are when we come to Him.  He is a Father who treats us as though we had never been away.

All of Christian living is a response to what we believe about God. We are to be holy because He is holy; we are to walk in the light because He is in the light; we love Him because He first loved us. What we believe about God will determine how we respond to triumph and tragedy; it will determine how we react to answered prayer and unanswered prayer.

Believing in God is not enough -- we must believe in the right kind of God.