Ripple Like Jesus

Preached by Pastor Chad Rickenbaker on August 30, 2026 [watch online] |  John 17

Family Discipleship Weekend — “Ripple Like Jesus”

We closed out our Family Discipleship Weekend this morning, and the theme all weekend has been the ripple effect. The idea is simple enough. Throw a rock into a pool of water and it creates ripples that move outward. Your faith works the same way. It doesn’t stay where it lands. It moves out into the lives of the people around you, and in family discipleship we talked a great deal about how the faith of parents ripples outward into the lives of their children.

The truth is that every one of us as believers has been called to live a life of influence. Jesus made that clear when He told His disciples to go and be witnesses for Him, to go and make disciples. Even before that, He told us what we already are:

“You are the salt of the earth; but if the salt loses its flavor, how shall it be seasoned? It is then good for nothing but to be thrown out and trampled underfoot by men. You are the light of the world. A city that is set on a hill cannot be hidden.”
—Matthew 5:13–14

Salt and light. Both of those change whatever they touch. God has called us to live lives of influence.

Now think about what a ripple actually does. A ripple pushes. It moves things in a certain direction. If you have ever stood waist deep at the beach with the waves rolling in, and a wave is just a ripple only bigger, then you know the feeling. The water comes in and it pushes you. It is influencing you to move toward the shore.

So here is the question I want us to ask. What direction is the influence of our lives pushing the next generation? Where are the ripples of our lives moving our children, our grandchildren, younger believers, the people God has placed around us? How can we make sure that the ripple effect of our faith is pushing them in a direction that is ultimately for their good and for the glory of God?

I believe the answer is this. If we are going to positively impact the people around us, we need to ripple like Jesus.

Now let me say this clearly and unequivocally: we are not Jesus. I understand that. But Jesus is the ultimate ripple maker. The ripples of His life are still moving at this very moment. My life right now is being positively influenced by the life He lived, by the death He died, by His resurrection, by His perfection. And while we are not Him, there are priorities He lived by that we can adopt, priorities that will make our own rippling more effective.

So where do we find those priorities? We would say the Bible, and that is right. We would narrow it to the Gospels, and that is right too. But I want to take you somewhere more specific. I think you find the priorities of Jesus in His prayer life.

Here is my thinking. If I want to know what really matters to you, I could examine your prayer life and find out, because you are going to pray about what matters to you most. Now, we do not ordinarily go around reading one another’s prayer journals. Every now and then when Joye walks through the room I will pick hers up and pretend I am reading it, because that is what husbands do, and she quickly informs me that it is none of my business. So I put it down.

But John recorded one of Jesus’ prayers for us. It is the longest recorded prayer in the Bible: John chapter 17, known as the High Priestly Prayer.

Jesus spoke these words, lifted up His eyes to heaven, and said: “Father, the hour has come. Glorify Your Son, that Your Son also may glorify You, as You have given Him authority over all flesh, that He should give eternal life to as many as You have given Him. And this is eternal life, that they may know You, the only true God, and Jesus Christ whom You have sent. I have glorified You on the earth. I have finished the work which You have given Me to do. And now, O Father, glorify Me together with Yourself, with the glory which I had with You before the world was.”
—John 17:1–5 (NKJV)

Notice how the prayer opens. “Father, the hour has come.” All through John’s Gospel, Jesus keeps saying that His hour has not yet come. My hour has not yet come. My hour has not yet come. And now He says it has arrived. What hour? It is the hour when the purpose of the Father would be fulfilled in Him, particularly His sacrificial death on the cross. The reason the Father sent Him: to be our sin bearer, to be our substitute, to receive the punishment for our sin. That hour has now come.

Here is why that is noteworthy to me. We generally pray about what matters most to us, and that is especially true when you know you are about to leave this life. Jesus knows He is about to die. He is about to make the ultimate sacrifice for our sin. And so the priorities that are part of who He is rise to the surface in this prayer. I want us to look at six of them, because I believe they are exactly the kind of priorities we can adopt to make our own ripple more effective.

The Glory of God

The first priority we see in the prayer of Jesus is the glory of God. Look again at verse 1: “Father, the hour has come. Glorify Your Son, that Your Son also may glorify You.”

Remember that Jesus had the full glory of deity before He ever entered this life. Before the incarnation, before He took on flesh, from all eternity past He shared in the glory of the Godhead. But when He took on human flesh, that glory was veiled. It was hidden. So what He is praying is this: Father, now that the hour has come, now that I am going to fulfill the purpose You sent Me for, now that I am going to lay down My life for the ones You have given Me, restore to Me the glory I had with You from the beginning. He says it plainly in verse 5. Glorify Me together with Yourself, with the glory which I had with You before the world was.

But do not miss what comes first. Glorify Your Son, that Your Son also may glorify You. The priority of Jesus is that the Father is glorified. And how is God glorified in the sacrifice of Jesus? Because in that sacrifice we see the incredible depth of His love for us. We see His grace. We see His mercy. We see that He is just. When we see what God did for us through the sacrifice of His Son, it ought to result in our worship. Jesus made the priority of the Father His own priority.

So if the number one priority of Jesus was to bring glory to the Father, what does that mean for us as parents, as grandparents, as influencers of the next generation? I think it can only mean this. My greatest priority as a dad and as a granddad should be to glorify God. When that is our greatest priority, it creates a powerful ripple effect on our children and grandchildren. They see it.

So how does that prioritization show up in a life? It shows up in our worship, because they are watching how we worship. It shows up in our obedience, because we prioritize the glory of God by doing what God says. It shows up in our surrender, our trust, our priorities, in what we celebrate, in how we manage our time and our finances and our passions. The next generation is watching.

One of the best things I have seen recently is this. Our daughter Hannah is expecting a baby girl in October, and our grandson Henry has gone with her to some of her appointments and watched the ultrasound. The other day he got hold of Hannah’s sonogram picture, pulled up his shirt, and put it on his belly. It is funny. It is also true. Children watch the actions of their parents. Grandchildren watch the actions of their grandparents.

A couple of weeks ago we introduced a new purpose statement for our church: we exist to glorify God and make disciples. Understand that this was the priority of Jesus in the longest recorded prayer in the Bible. The first thing He prays is that God would be glorified.

So whose glory are we pursuing with our children? I have watched a lot of parents seek their own glory through the achievements of their children. If the child succeeds academically, the parent finds his glory in that academic achievement. If the child succeeds in athletics, the parent finds his glory there. I have seen many a dad living vicariously through a child who is just trying to enjoy the game, while the dad is trying to recreate his own glory days. As parents we have to be careful not to influence our children toward thinking that life is all about our glory. The purpose of life is the glory of God.

Every Christian life is creating a ripple. Unless you live in a vacuum, and none of us do, nor would God have us to. He has left us in this world. You will see it in this very passage: He left the disciples in this world.

Having grown up on and around the lake, there is a sign I used to see all the time out on the water. It says: “Slow. You are responsible for your wake.” A wake is nothing more than a ripple. You are driving your boat, and your boat is throwing a wake, and you are responsible for it, whether it is washing other people’s boats against the dock or eroding the bank. And here is the message for us. We are also responsible for the ripple of our lives.

So what are we modeling for the next generation? If our children and our grandchildren were to glorify God based on what they see in us, how much glory would God receive?

The Protection of Their Faith

The second priority we see in this prayer is the protection of their faith. Look at verse 6.

“I have manifested Your name to the men whom You have given Me out of the world. They were Yours, You gave them to Me, and they have kept Your word. Now they have known that all things which You have given Me are from You. For I have given to them the words which You have given Me; and they have received them, and have known surely that I came forth from You; and they have believed that You sent Me. I pray for them. I do not pray for the world but for those whom You have given Me, for they are Yours. And all Mine are Yours, and Yours are Mine, and I am glorified in them. Now I am no longer in the world, but these are in the world, and I come to You. Holy Father, keep through Your name those whom You have given Me, that they may be one as We are.”
—John 17:6–11

Did you hear it? I pray for them. What is He asking for them? Verse 11. Holy Father, keep through Your name those whom You have given Me.

Let me insert something here. Jesus says all Mine are Yours, and Yours are Mine. Those disciples belong to the Father and they belong to Him. That is good news. If you are a Christian, you belong to God. You belong to Jesus. If your children are Christians, they belong to God and they belong to Jesus. And there is power in that, because there are times when you can hand them back and say, God, this youngin’ is Yours. You need to do something with him. Have you ever offered back to God what He gave to you? That is Your boy, God. You had better do something with him.

Now, keep is the New King James wording. Other translations render it protect. Jesus is praying that the Father would protect His disciples.

Here is what I have pondered. I am of the persuasion, and I am sure you are too, that Jesus had the kind of life and faith and character that when He prayed, the Father answered, and that He prayed in accordance with the Father’s will. And yet every one of these disciples eventually died a martyr’s death. They suffered physically. So did the Father not answer the prayer of Jesus? Did the Father disregard His request?

I think the Father absolutely answered that prayer, only not in the way we might first assume. When we hear the word protection, our first thought is physical protection. I do not think that is what Jesus was praying for. I think He was praying for spiritual protection, for the preservation of their faith. Because what He is saying is, Father, I am about to get on up out of here. I am leaving. They are going to remain, and the world I am leaving them in is not going to be favorably disposed toward them. In fact, the world is going to hate them. And there is an evil one in this world who will seek to bring about the collapse of their faith. So Father, would You protect them? Would You watch over them? Would You keep them? Would You preserve them so that their faith does not falter?

“I do not pray that You should take them out of the world, but that You should keep them from the evil one.”
—John 17:15

His greatest concern was not for their physical safety. It was for their spiritual safety.

So why should that matter to us? Because, as it relates to the next generation, LifeWay research indicates that somewhere between 66 and 70 percent of teenagers who attend church regularly throughout their high school years leave the church after they graduate. Sixty-six to seventy percent. There is a very real reason that Jesus prays keep them, protect them. He knew the possibility of falling away was real.

This does not mean we stop praying for the physical wellbeing of our children. It does suggest that our greatest desire for them should not be merely their health or their comfort, but their spiritual security. Jesus said it this way, and it runs completely counter to how we normally think, especially about our children:

“For what profit is it to a man if he gains the whole world, and loses his own soul? Or what will a man give in exchange for his soul?”
—Matthew 16:26

What good is it if our children and our grandchildren have every worldly comfort, every worldly pleasure, every form of success the world can measure, and they do not know Jesus? What good is it if they enjoy perfect health and every measure of worldly success and then walk away from their faith? What would you prefer for them?

Are we nurturing them toward a comfortable life on earth, or toward faithfulness to Jesus? Is the ripple of our influence indoctrinating our children with the idea that the meaning of this life is pleasure, that the most important god is the god of comfort, that what matters is building a life that is very comfortable? Or is the ripple of our lives saying that no matter what comes, we are going to be faithful to Jesus?

Notice that Jesus does not pray that the Father would take them out of the world. He prays that He would keep them from the evil one. Which means that we come alongside our children. We disciple them. We teach them from God’s Word, and this part is so important, not only what the Bible says but why the Bible is true. That is where they stumble. When they start wrestling with the issues of their faith for themselves, the question is not what they were taught. The question is whether what they were taught is true.

I have prayed and I will keep praying for the physical protection of our children. But I have also been brought to the realization that the most important thing is that they are spiritually ready to meet the Lord and that they hold fast to their faith in Christ.

The Joy of Jesus

Priority number three is the joy of Jesus. Look at verse 13.

“But now I come to You, and these things I speak in the world, that they may have My joy fulfilled in themselves.”
—John 17:13

This is the High Priestly Prayer, the last prayer Jesus prays before He is betrayed, arrested, brutalized and crucified. And as He prays, here is His request: that they would have His joy fulfilled in them. He prayed they would have the fullness of that joy even in a world that hated them, even in a world where they would be misunderstood.

So as we think about the ripple effect, here is the question. Where do our children and our grandchildren see us trying to find our joy? We can try to find it in a lot of places. Hobbies. Activities. Work. Worldly success. But when our children and our grandchildren and our friends and our coworkers look at our lives, do they see that we are finding our ultimate and greatest joy in our relationship with Jesus? Because the ripple effect of that will influence the people around you to seek joy in the same place you found it. If your children and grandchildren see you seeking joy somewhere else, that is conditioning them to go looking for it in that same place.

The Purpose of God

Priority number four is the purpose of God. Look at verse 17.

“Sanctify them by Your truth. Your word is truth. As You sent Me into the world, I also have sent them into the world.”
—John 17:17–18

You know from our recent studies that the word sanctify means to be set apart for a special purpose. It is also the word holy: to be set apart unto God, set apart from the world. And Jesus is saying, Father, sanctify them. Set them apart, because I have a special purpose for them in this world. I have a special purpose for them in this life.

Oftentimes when we are raising our children, we are raising them to live out our dreams for them. We raise them to pursue our dream. When in reality, if we want the most effective ripple effect on them, what we ought to be doing is raising them to live according to God’s purpose for them, His calling on their lives. What I want for my child does not matter nearly so much. What God wants for them matters most. And Jesus is praying, set them apart for Your purposes.

There are a lot of purposes for which they might live, but Jesus is saying, I want them to live for Your purpose. And He defines that purpose in part right here: as You sent Me, I also have sent them. He says it again after the resurrection, and it echoes through the rest of the New Testament:

So Jesus said to them again, “Peace to you! As the Father has sent Me, I also send you.”
—John 20:21

“But you shall receive power when the Holy Spirit has come upon you; and you shall be witnesses to Me in Jerusalem, and in all Judea and Samaria, and to the end of the earth.”
—Acts 1:8

“Go therefore and make disciples of all the nations, baptizing them in the name of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Spirit, teaching them to observe all things that I have commanded you; and lo, I am with you always, even to the end of the age.”
—Matthew 28:19–20

This being set apart is being set apart to the mission of God, to the purpose of God. So am I living a sanctified life, a life that is set apart for the purposes of God, so that the ripple effect of my life is one that influences my children and my grandchildren and the people around me to orient their own lives toward the purpose of God?

The Unity of Fellowship

Priority number five is the unity of fellowship. Notice that in verse 20 the prayer turns. Jesus moves from praying for the disciples who were with Him right then and there to praying for all those who would ever believe in Him through their testimony. That includes you and me.

“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.”
—John 17:20–21

Jesus is talking about future generations of Christians, and He says His prayer is that all those who come to believe in Him would be united. United in relationship with Him as Savior, and united in oneness as the body of Christ, the church.

Even this unity has a missional purpose. Jesus says that as the church, as believers united together as one, the watching world will see that and it will be a testimony to them of the truthfulness of the gospel. They will believe He was sent because they see that unity.

So what does that have to do with the ripple effect? As parents and grandparents, our view of the church gets passed down to our children and grandchildren. If you are negative about the church, do not be surprised when your children are negative about the church. If you are halfheartedly indifferent about your commitment to the life of the church, do not be surprised one day when your children walk away from the church, because all they have seen in your life is that it really did not matter all that much. If during the course of the week you are devouring other believers with your words, do not be surprised later when your children and grandchildren are hypercritical of every believer who is not measuring up to their standard. There will be a ripple effect of your view of the church, and it will be passed on to the next generation.

I want you to see that in the prayer of Jesus. One of the things that mattered most to Him was the unity of the body of Christ. Which means that we love each other. It means we show one another grace. Because I do not know if you know this or not, but no one in this room is perfect. And if we are going to be united, we are going to have to show some grace. We are going to have to show some mercy. We are going to have to do what the Bible says:

Let nothing be done through selfish ambition or conceit, but in lowliness of mind let each esteem others better than himself.
—Philippians 2:3

We do not like to do that. We like everything to be about us. We like everything to go according to the way we want it, and we want people to act the way we think they ought to act. And in the body of Christ, Jesus said, I know they can be that way. Father, I know they can be that way. But I am praying that they would be one as We are one. And when the watching world sees a bunch of fallen people who can love each other in spite of their differences and their variances of opinion, when they see that a diverse group of people can have that kind of unity, it will be a testimony to them of the reality of the gospel.

That is a ripple effect. So the attitude and the perspective our children and grandchildren have toward the church, guess where they are going to get it. They are going to get it from us. From watching the way we speak of Jesus’ church, the way we commit to it, the way we love it.

The Presence of Jesus

And then lastly, priority number six is the presence of Jesus. That seems a little awkward, does it not? We have been talking about the priorities of Jesus in this prayer, so it seems strange to say that one of the priorities of Jesus is the presence of Jesus. Let me show you what I mean. Look at verse 24.

“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.”
—John 17:24

Look at the beginning of that verse again. Father, I desire. What is it that He desires? He desires that His disciples, whether the ones present with Him that day or, as it begins in verse 20, all those who would ever believe in Him, would be with Him. Listen, if you are a Christian, get this, because it is amazing. Jesus is praying to the Father, and one of the priorities of His prayer is that He wants you to be with Him. Is that not amazing? He wants you to be with Him. It is important to Him. It is what He desires. It is what He values.

This past Thursday morning, during our men’s Bible study, we were in this chapter, and God spoke very clearly to me. Let me say something about that. You are probably already aware that I do not use those words lightly. It always makes me nervous when someone says God spoke to me. My antenna goes up. The only thing that brings my antenna back down is when the person follows it by quoting Scripture, because that is how God speaks. God speaks through His Word.

Thursday morning we were reading and reflecting on John 17, and I was looking at verse 24, where Jesus says, Father, I desire that they also whom You gave Me may be with Me where I am.

I needed what God said to me that morning. Over the last four months, since we lost David, in my grief I have said to the Lord many times: I just want my son back. Can I just have my son back? I know that it is not possible. I get that. But in some ways it is still very surreal. It just does not seem real. And so no less than a hundred times I have said to God, can I just have him back?

And Thursday morning the Holy Spirit said, I want you to see something. Something I had never paid attention to, never thought of in this way. In verse 24 Jesus says, Father, I desire that they also whom You gave Me may be with Me where I am. Jesus is saying, I want them with Me. My desire is that they be with Me. And for four months, in my private time between me and God, I had been saying: God, I want him with me. Can I have my boy back? I desire him to be with me.

And God asked me, “Whose desire is greater? Whose wish is greater?” And the answer is His. His desire is greater. He wanted David with Him.

And I love that the New King James Version goes straight from that right into “that they may behold My glory.” The day we lost David, he was in the mountains up near Burnsville, North Carolina, at a job site. He was literally standing on a mountain. And I read this verse and I hear Jesus saying, “I want David to be with Me so that he can see My glory.” David loved the mountains. He loved being outside in the woods. And I can just imagine Jesus saying, hey David, you think this view is something? Let Me show you My glory. Let Me show you My glory.

I realized in a way I had not before that my desire had been contrary to the desire of Jesus. I want David here with me. But Jesus prayed to His Father that His disciples would be with Him and would behold His glory. My desire was at odds with God’s desire for my son.

Have you ever in your life, if you have children, considered the thought that maybe what you want for your children is at odds with what God wants for them? That what you desire for them is different from what Jesus would desire for them? Because I think if we are honest, most of us would say that we love our kids with a love that is unspeakable, and what we want for them is that they be safe. We want them comfortable. We really want them to have some measure of success, because that makes us feel better about ourselves. If they do not have too many problems in life, we feel good about our parenting. If they get off track, we feel like that reflects on us. And so we carry all these desires for our children. Have you ever thought that the desire you have for your children may not be the desire that Jesus has for them?

I was brought to a stark realization Thursday morning that a desire I had about my son was not in alignment with the desire his Savior had for him. When you think about the ripple effect, the most effective ripple is going to be the one that flows out of a proper alignment with the will of God for your life and for the lives of your children.

And then something about that verse came to me from, and this is going to sound strange, May of 1983. Now, I do not remember what I had for breakfast yesterday. Well, that is not entirely true. It was a Duck Donuts donut and an empanada. But generally I do not remember what I had for breakfast yesterday, and yet I can remember this.

May of 1983. I was a nine-year-old boy, and my grandmother took me to a crusade where I heard the gospel. I responded to the message, to the call of the Lord Jesus Christ, to the drawing of the Holy Spirit. I responded in faith and received Christ as my Savior. That night after the crusade was over I made my commitment, and my grandmother bought me a brand new King James Bible. She opened it to John 3:16, and I could not believe it, but she wrote in my Bible. I was so shocked. Nobody should ever write in my new Bible. But she did. And where it says world, she wrote my name.

“For God so loved the world that He gave His only begotten Son, that whoever believes in Him should not perish but have everlasting life.”
—John 3:16

For God so loved Chad that He gave His only begotten Son, that if Chad would believe in Him, he would not perish but have everlasting life.

So when I was looking at verse 24 on Thursday, I remembered that, and I read it this way: Father, I desire David, whom You gave to Me, that he would be with Me, and that David would behold My glory.

I shared that with Dawn while we were standing in Tracy’s office, and she caught something I almost missed. She said, “Isn’t that the ripple effect of your grandmother to you?”

And I can go back further than that. My grandmother who did that for me, her name was Barbara. Her mother was Eunice, a faithful Christian lady who walked with the Lord and rippled that into the life of my grandmother Barbara, who rippled it into my life, and hopefully has now been rippled into the lives of our children, into the life of our son David, who is now beholding the glory of his Savior.

What Ripple Is Your Life Creating?

The ripple effect is the effect of your life on the people around you. So what is the effect of your faith on your children and on your grandchildren? What are the priorities that can enhance the effectiveness of your rippling?

For Jesus, it was the glory of God. It was spiritual protection, even above physical protection. It was the joy of Jesus, and wherever you are finding your joy is where your children and your grandchildren and the next generation are going to go looking for it too. It was the purpose of God, sanctified and set apart for His purposes. It was unity and fellowship, because whatever your attitude and approach to the body of Christ is, that is the ripple that gets passed to your children and your grandchildren. And it was the presence of Jesus. He came and He did all of this, He gave His life, so that ultimately all who believe in Him could one day be with Him where He is and behold His glory.

What ripple is your life creating? What effect is your faith having on those around you? Make no mistake, whether you realize it or not, you are creating a wake. You are creating a ripple. As the sign said: Slow down. You are responsible for your wake. You are responsible for your ripple, because it is going to impact others. No person lives unto himself. Every one of us lives in relation to other people, and how we live out our faith is either going to have a positive or a negative impact on where they are in their journey with Jesus.

So maybe today, as a parent or a grandparent, you just need to come before Jesus and say, Lord Jesus, I need Your help.

And, by the way, if you feel like you have not been a perfect influence in the life of your family, aren’t you grateful for the grace of God? Your mistakes cannot undo the purpose of God for the life of your child. Some shortcoming in your parenting does not mean that your child’s life is ruined forever and ever. We are responsible, yes. But there is not anything we are going to do that is going to outdo the sovereignty of God in the life of your child. So you can rest in His grace. You can trust in His mercy. And we also realize we have a responsibility. So God, help us to take that responsibility and to model it in such a way that they are influenced, because that is what a ripple does, it influences, a wave pushes, that they are pushed toward intimacy with Jesus.

Maybe for you today it is simply a time of thanksgiving as you remember the spiritual influences on your own life, those who have gone before you. Maybe a grandfather. Maybe a grandmother. Maybe your mom or your dad, or the combination of all those people. And this morning you just want to thank the Lord for them, because you have an entirely different set of priorities because of what you saw in them.

Maybe you are a young parent with young children and you realize that you could so easily lay your wishes and your desires over your children, and they may not always reflect what God wants for them. And today you want to trade that in. You want to exchange it. Lord, here are the things I have wanted for my children, but I realize that what You want for them is what is best.

Or maybe the beginning point of rippling faith into the lives of your children or grandchildren is simply praying for them. Jesus prayed for us. If He recognized that we needed His prayer, then it is a good bet that our children and our grandchildren need ours. They need that prayer covering.

Scripture references in this message: Matthew 5:13–14; John 17:1–5; John 17:6–11; John 17:15; Matthew 16:26; John 17:13; John 17:17–18; John 20:21; Acts 1:8; Matthew 28:19–20; John 17:20–21; Philippians 2:3; John 17:24; John 3:16. (NKJV)

Want to go deeper? Join us for worship on Sunday mornings, or find a small group and keep the conversation going at Berea First Baptist Church.

Scripture taken from the New King James Version®. Copyright © 1982 by Thomas Nelson. Used by permission. All rights reserved.