John 17:1-19
17:1 After Jesus said this, he looked toward heaven and prayed:
“Father, the hour has come. Glorify your Son, that your Son may glorify you. 2 For you granted him authority over all people that he might give eternal life to all those you have given him. 3 Now this is eternal life: that they know you, the only true God, and Jesus Christ, whom you have sent. 4 I have brought you glory on earth by finishing the work you gave me to do. 5 And now, Father, glorify me in your presence with the glory I had with you before the world began.
6 “I have revealed you to those whom you gave me out of the world. They were yours; you gave them to me and they have obeyed your word. 7 Now they know that everything you have given me comes from you. 8 For I gave them the words you gave me and they accepted them. They knew with certainty that I came from you, and they believed that you sent me. 9 I pray for them. I am not praying for the world, but for those you have given me, for they are yours. 10 All I have is yours, and all you have is mine. And glory has come to me through them. 11 I will remain in the world no longer, but they are still in the world, and I am coming to you. Holy Father, protect them by the power of your name, the name you gave me, so that they may be one as we are one. 12 While I was with them, I protected them and kept them safe by that name you gave me. None has been lost except the one doomed to destruction so that Scripture would be fulfilled.
13 “I am coming to you now, but I say these things while I am still in the world, so that they may have the full measure of my joy within them. 14 I have given them your word and the world has hated them, for they are not of the world any more than I am of the world. 15 My prayer is not that you take them out of the world but that you protect them from the evil one. 16 They are not of the world, even as I am not of it. 17 Sanctify them by the truth; your word is truth. 18 As you sent me into the world, I have sent them into the world. 19 For them I sanctify myself, that they too may be truly sanctified.
Scripture taken from the HOLY BIBLE, NEW INTERNATIONAL
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Discussion Questions
- What does it mean to glorify something?
- Why should we pray to see the glory of the Son and his work? What would it look like to see that prayer answered?
- How is it that the disciples glorify the Son?
- Jesus prays for his followers knowing they will be instrumental to the advancement of the mission. He prays first of all for their protection. Why is protection a necessary thing for disciples to be effective in mission?
- How can God’s protection result in our joy? Explain.
- How might God’s protection help with embracing a hard calling?
- Secondly, Jesus prays for our sanctification. What does it mean to be sanctified?
- According to this prayer, what is the relationship between the believer and the world?
- According to this prayer, it would seem that distaste for the world, retreat from the world, and a longing to be done with the world would be inappropriate. In what ways, if any, have you struggled with these feelings?
- How does the work of Christ help us fulfill our calling to make the Glory of the gospel known?
11.12.2023
Transcript
The Prayers of Christ
*This transcript is generated from the sermon audio. This document has not been edited for spelling, grammar, or exactness.
It. We’re in John, chapter 17. John, chapter 17. The Grownups. Now I’m talking to you guys. We’re in John, chapter 17. We’re on page 929 in the Bibles that we have here in the book rack in front of you. We’re going to read verses one to 19. I’ll just frame it out for you as you find your way to it in the Bible. We are finished. A series now that we have called Final Lessons, because we’ve been looking at the upper room discourse, or the farewell discourse, is what it’s often called, and the concluding prayer that he offers. So John 13 to the end of 17 is the place that we’ve been for many weeks now, where we’re coming to the end now. And the Lord is going to pray, and we’re going to learn from his prayer about his priorities for his followers. Let me go ahead and read, and then we’ll pray and we will get to work. This is John, chapter 17, starting in verse one. It reads like this.
After Jesus said this, he looked toward heaven and prayed, Father, the hour has come. Glorify your son so that your son may glorify you. For you granted him authority over all people, that he might give eternal life to all those you have given him. Now this is eternal life. That they know you, the only true God in Jesus Christ, whom you have sent. I have brought you glory on earth by finishing the work you gave me to do. And now, Father, glorify me in your presence with the glory I had with you before the world began. I have revealed you to those whom you gave me out of the world. They were yours. You gave them to me, and they have obeyed your word. Now they know that everything you have given me comes from you. For I gave them the words you gave me, and they accepted them. They knew with certainty that I came from you, and they believed that you sent me. I pray for them. I’m not praying for the world, but for those you have given me. For they are yours. All I have is yours, and all you have is mine. And glory has come to me through them. I will remain in the world no longer. But they are still in the world, and I am coming to you. HoLy Father, protect them by the power of your name, the name you gave me so that they may be one as we are one. While I was with them, I protected them and kept them safe. By that name you gave me, none has been lost, except the one doomed to destruction so that Scripture would be fulfilled. I am coming to you now. But I say these things while I am still in the world so that they may have the full measure of my joy within them. I’ve given them your word and the world has hated them. For they are not of the world any more than I am of the world. My prayer is not that you take them out of the world, but that you protect them from the evil one. They are not of the world, even as I am not of it. Sanctify them by the truth. Your word is truth. As you sent me into the world, I have sent them into the world. For them, I sanctify myself that they too may be truly sanctified.
Let’s pray, Lord, as we’ve opened your word and read from it, we’re praying that by your spirit, through your word, you would speak to us, that we would hear your voice loud and clear. And we pray, God, that you would help us to understand who we are and what we are called to do. And Lord, would you help us to apprehend the glory of Christ and what he has done for us? Then let us be instruments of communicating that glory. The watching world. We pray in Jesus name. Amen.
This week, as I was working on the sermon and I realized we’re spending two weeks on John chapter 17 and the prayer of the Lord here, I began to wish to myself that we were doing more like four weeks because it is so rich and there is so much here. It’s also a bit confusing. There are some concepts here that we’ll bump into that are challenging, but I’m going to do my best to make it plain for us. So, two things that I note here about the prayer that the Lord offers. The first is he prays regarding this concept of glory. And we’ll find that in verses one to ten, he prays about the concept of glory. The second thing that he prays about is the mission of God. The mission of God to reach the watching world with the news of Christ. And we’ll find that in verses eleven to 19. So let’s get to work.
A PRAYER REGARDING GLORY
A prayer regarding glory. Glory is a concept that has to do with value. To glorify something means to recognize the value that that thing has. And you do that by doing things like this, praising and honoring and magnifying and worshiping that thing. You glorify something when you recognize this is what this thing is worth. It’s valuable. It’s incredible. It’s magnificent.
The Glory of the Son
And so Jesus is praying that the Father would reveal the glory of the Son. Look at verse one. After Jesus said this, he looked toward heaven. And he prayed, Father, the hour has come. Glorify your son, that your son may glorify you. He’s saying, Father, show them who I am. Reveal to the watching world that your son is magnificent. Glorify your son that your son may glorify you. He’s asking that the Father would reveal who he truly is. Now we get a preview of this in the other Gospels. In fact, all three of the other gospels have an event called the Transfiguration. So Jesus does a little field trip with a few of his closest followers. He brings them up on a mountain. I’ll go from Luke chapter Nine on this one. He brings them up to the top of a mountain, and they’re there. It’s just Peter, James, John, and Jesus. And they’re there. And Jesus is praying. They’re praying. And then something happens. Something radical happens. He’s transformed before their very eyes. Jesus goes from being this ordinary Galilean dude that they would be familiar with and comfortable with, and all of a sudden, he is radiant and he is magnificent, and he is glorified. That’s how it’s put there in Luke chapter nine. They see his glory. That’s what Peter, James, and John, the disciples, saw, his glory, and they lose their minds. In fact, Peter’s so excited about what’s happening that he’s like, let’s just live here. Like, I don’t even want to leave. Let’s just set up shop. We’ll just live here. And, like, you’re on a mountain. Like, I don’t even know what that means, but he’s saying, whatever this is, he’s moved by it profoundly. To see the Lord going from ordinary to glorious marks him profoundly. He writes about it in his letters. In fact, all three of those disciples do so in their letters. They’re marked by that event because they saw something of the glory of Jesus Christ. So what’s happening at the Transfiguration? And what Jesus is praying about here is, Father, would you give evidence of who this man really is? And when people see that, it will change them. Social media is a weird thing, but the algorithm got me on this one. I’m not even mad about it. It’s super weird and really dumb. But on YouTube, one of the videos that will constantly pop up for me is this power lifter named Anna Tolley. And what he does is he pranks people at a gym. He goes in there, he has overalls on coveralls or whatever, and then he’s got a mop, and he’s kind of cruising through there. He’s a small dude, but he’s a power lifter. And so he goes into the gym and he’s cleaning up, and he’s a foreigner, so he’s got a very thick accent. He’s like, oh, I’m sorry, I’m sorry, I’m sorry. And goes up to people who are doing their workout, and he’s cleaning around them. They’re like, dude, we’re working out. Like, get out of here. We’re in the midst of our set. And he’s like, oh, I’m so sorry. Can I just move this really quick? And it’d be like a six foot barbell with 45 pound plates on it, like 135 pounds. He’s like, can I just clean really quick? He’ll grab it, and I’ll do one of these. Boom. Throws it up over his head and then mops. And the people who are working out that are struggling with this weight are like, what is happening right now? And he does it to the big dudes, too. They’re like, the big buckethead ones, and they’re deadlifting all this stuff. He goes up to them and they’re like, dude, get lost. And he’s like, I’m so sorry. Can I just clean here? And these guys are like, we’re in the midst of our workout. Beat it. And he’s like, oh, excuse me. And so then he’s like, can I try this? And they’re like, no, you will hurt yourself. You’ll blow a Gasket. Like, don’t even touch this. He’s like, oh, this is a lot of know. And they’re doing this Little thing. Then he just picks it up. He just starts deadlifting it over and over again. And everyone’s is. They’re like, losing their minds. And are you? For, like, how is this possible? Now, Anatoly is a Power lifter. And he goes in there, and he’s veiled. He looks Ordinary. He looks Small. He looks unassuming. And then they see, oh, this Guy. He’s something else. And that’s what the Lord is doing. At the transfiguration, the disciples see him as this Ordinary Galilean, but all of a sudden they realize, oh, no, this Guy is something completely otherworldly. This is the Son of God. So when Jesus prays in this Way, he’s praying that God would show people who he really is. Look at verse five. Now, Father, glorify me in your presence with the glory I had before the world began. He’s saying, just show them who I really Am who I’ve always been. Show the glory that I had in your presence before the world began. That’s what we’re praying for, that that glory would be revealed. And the Bible says that’s exactly what the Son does. The writer to the Hebrews Puts it like this. Hebrews One, verse three. The Son, Jesus Christ, is the radiance of God’s glory and the exact representation of his being, sustaining all things by his powerful word. So the early Christians came to see the Lord as. See Jesus as he is, that that’s exactly who he is. He’s the radiance of God’s glory. If you want to know what God is like, look to the sun, and you will see the radiance of God’s glory, the exact representation of his being. In fact, in this Series that We’ve been in, if you recall, Philip One time asked the Lord, because he was Confused, said, well, just show us the Father. Maybe that’ll be enough. Jesus said, come on, Dude. Haven’t you been with me Long enough to know if you’ve seen Me, you’ve seen the Father. The son is the representation of the Father. The Son is the radiance of God’s glory and the exact representation of his being. When Jesus prays like this, he’s inviting us to apprehend who he really is, and we should join him. I would encourage you to pray this prayer, the prayer of the Lord. I would encourage you to pray, Father. Show me the glory of the Son. Show me who He really Is. Because it’s way too easy to cruise through life without that magnitude landing on my heart. I can sing about him on a Sunday morning. I can do my devotions and maybe read about him in the Bible, but then I walk away and I forget. But show me his glory In Such a way that I can’t Help but be affected by who he is and what he’s done. Show me the glory of the son. Moses prayed like this back in the beginning of the Bible, in the Book of Exodus. This is Exodus 33 and 34. And I’ll paraphrase, this is my version, not the real one. It’s just me adlibbing here. But he says, God, show me your glory. And God goes, oh, Buddy, I wish I could, but you wouldn’t make it, because no One can. Look on my glory and live. But here’s what I’ll do for you, Moses. I’ll Put you in the cleft of a rock. I’ll cover you with my hand. I’ll allow My glory to pass by you. And when it’s safe, I’ll remove my hand and you can peer out and see the afterglow of my glory, because that’s about as much as you could handle. And so this is Exodus, chapter 33 and 34. ANd God DOES that. His glory passes by, and he reveals his character to who Moses is. He speaks, and I would say one of the most important paragraphs in the scriptures. God reveals who he is. And Moses apprehends something of the glory of God in the aftermath of him passing by. And it tells us in exodus 34, verse eight, Moses bowed to the ground at once and worshipped. so we should pray. show me the glory of the sun, and we’ll know when we arrive at that glory, when we find ourselves face down, recognizing he is incredible. pray in that way. Show us the glory of the son.
The Glory of the Son’s Work
Show us the glory of his work. that’s the second thing we see Here. He says in verse one, Father, the hour has come. It’s a technical term. It’s talking about his crucifixion. And in the Book of John, it’s been this theme that’s running through it. So at the front end, he keeps saying things like this. The hour has not yet come. It’s not his time yet. So he continues on in his ministry and in his dealings. But now we get to our series and to chapters 13 to 17. He begins to say, the hour is at hand. The hour is near. And here he prays, the hour has come. This is it. This is the moment when he will go to the cross, when he will be arrested and executed. But he knows exactly what he’s doing. He is accomplishing salvation for those who had trust in him. Look at verse two. For you granted him the Son. The Father granted the Son authority over all people, that he might give eternal life to all those you have given to him, so he’s able to give life eternal to those who will receive him. By faith, he is granted the authority to do so. That’s the work. And it is a glorious work. It is the most glorious of all work that’s ever been performed. Jesus is going to the cross to make a way for people to experience salvation so that they might have eternal life. And he’s able to give that to them because he has authority to do so. He explains how in verse three, he says, this is eternal life. You want to know what it is? Here’s my definition. The Lord says that they know you, the only true God, and Jesus Christ, whom you have sent eternal life, is knowledge of God, the only true God in Jesus Christ whom you have sent. Now he’s using that word knowledge, not as you need this information so you could pass the test. You need to know some stuff. He’s not using it like that. This is not mere information. You can know about God, but not believe in him for salvation. Even the demons know plenty of facts about who God is and what he’s done. They just don’t like it, and they don’t believe in him in that saving way. Here, what Jesus is praying about is that people would come to know God, meaning a relational knowledge, a knowledge of God who is, and to Jesus Christ whom he has sent. That is what saving faith is all about. It’s about the person and work of Jesus Christ and what he has performed for us at Calvary. And to have eternal life is to have him. Earlier in the Book of John, it reads like this. You’ll be familiar with it. It says, for God so loved the world that he gave his only son, that whosoever believes in him, that son shall not perish, but will have eternal life. You believe in him and you receive the eternal life that he has been authorized to give. And his work then is incredible. He says in verse four, I have brought you glory on earth. I’ve brought you this glory on earth by finishing the work that you gave me to do what he was able to do in his life, ministry, death, and resurrection is the most glorious of all work that we will ever behold. That work is something that we should revel in, and we will revel in for all of eternity. In fact, there’s a thing that happens at the end of the Bible where we get to see what it’ll be like when we have eternal life. And in the last book of the Bible, it tells us that we will worship him every, like, nonstop, just for what he has done. His work will be so incredible to us. And this is interesting to me because I don’t know if you guys have heard of the law of diminishing returns. Like, if you keep doing the same thing over and over, it loses its appeal. I love pizza. I can have pizza multiple times a week. I love pizza. But if I have pizza every day, there’s going to be a moment where I’m like, I don’t really want pizza anymore. I need a break here. Maybe at least a day off. But with the Lord, there’s no diminishing returns on his work for all of eternity. We will be happy to revel in what he’s done. We will glory in the work that he has done for us, and it will never diminish. I would say it like this. It will increase. It’s inexhaustible what he’s done for us. They sing like this. I’m just going to read it to you. This is revelation five. They are saying, worthy is the lamb who was slain to receive power and wealth and wisdom and strength and honor and glory and praise. Then I heard everybody, every creature in heaven and on earth and under the earth and on the sea, and all that’s in them saying, to him who sits on the Throne and to the Lamb, be praise and honor and glory and power forever and ever. It will be an unending glory fest of Jesus Christ and what he’s done for us, and we will be very happy to participate in that. And we need to be reminded of this work. In fact, every week we pray like this. Help us recognize the glory of your work. We’ll take communion here shortly, and it’ll be a moment for us to remind ourselves, here’s what Christ has done for us. Let the weight and the gravity of that rest on your soul so that you might go out from here with a renewed Interest in the things of God.
The Glory of His Followers
Well, he prays also for the glory of his Followers. He prays for the glory of his followers and what we can do as disciples of his. Now, THIS Section Is a little tricky, and I’ve been praying about Whether or not to do a little sidebar here, and I suppose we will. It deals with things like sovereignty and human Responsibility. He describes how disciples Came to be, and he describes the sovereignty of God and the human agency Of Choice. And so I would just want to let you know this is tricky. And if you leave here today feeling confused, you’re in good company, because this is mystery. There are a few big mysteries in the bible. This is one of them. Mysteries like this, the trinity. I am not good at math, but this math doesn’t make sense. God is one and he’s father, son, and holy spirit. that’s mystery because intellectually it doesn’t line up. but it’s what the Bible teaches, and so we’re happy to affirm it. Or the humanity and the deity of Christ, those are things that are hard to put together in the same way. This other thing that we’re going to bump in today, the sovereignty of God and human responsibility, it’s another one of those things that we put in the bucket of this is a mysterious thing that the Bible teaches, but we’re going to do our best with it. Now, I am very careful in how I talk about this, and I do this on purpose. I’m going to give you my two reasons why I’m very careful with this. [First], I don’t want to use language that would actually do harm to the interpretation. And what I mean by that is once you have your conclusion and you bring it to the text, you try to prove your conclusion from the text and you miss what it actually says. Called confirmation bias. This is what I believe, and I lay it over the text, and I have to make the text confirm that. And what can happen is you actually miss out on the nuance of what God is saying. So I’m careful to do that for that very reason, because I want to make sure people see what God has said. And oftentimes, I’ll just be honest with you, in this church, we are all over the map on this one, on a spectrum. We’re all over the place. My concern as a pastor is I want to allow the Bible to have the final say, not our statement of faith and not my own personal opinions, but I want the Bible to be the thing that you allow to have the prominent voice. And in order for that to happen, you’re going to have to listen to what God says and how he says it. Some of you, you’re happy to underline parts of the Bible that talk about sovereignty. You also need to hear about human agency. You need to be influenced in the other direction. Some of you love the freedom of the will to choose, and you think that’s the most significant thing. But you also need to see where God speaks about his Sovereignty and his control. One of the reasons why I’m careful here is interpretation. Here’s the [second] reason; I feel called to persuade people toward the Bible, meaning there’s a strategy here. And, I would put it like this, in order for people to hear what the Bible says, they have to be in a place where they’re willing to receive it. I’ll illustrate it just briefly, then we’ll move on. I know this is taking too much time, but if I gathered people together, a diverse group of People, and I sat them down, I said, I want you guys to have a hearty conversation. We’re going to talk about the world. We’re going to talk about issues. We’re going to talk about all these different things. I want you to weigh in on what you think could be helpful, what you can personally do, and we’re just going to sit around tables and do that. Sounds fun, right? Well, for some of you, sounds fun. Some of us are like, nah, I’d skip that one. But what if I said on the front end, but here’s what I need you to do. Before you even discuss these issues, you need to tell everyone how you vote. You need to say whether or not you would vote Republican or you would vote as a Democrat, And I said, you have to do that before we ever have these conversations. What would happen to the conversation? They’d be unproductive. They’d be incredibly unproductive. Because the moment that you get that label, you import all of the connotations. And they’re all negative, by the way. You import, oh, I wouldn’t listen to this person. I wouldn’t trust this person any further than I could throw them. Right? So those conversations would be shut down. So when it comes to biblical concepts that are tough to handle, the moment that we begin to draw hard and fast lines, there are some people that will nod their heads, yeah, right on, man. And other people that are, ah, no way. But I want to persuade, and so I want to be careful here, even as I talk about these things. Well, let’s see it here in the text, Jesus is praying about the glory of his followers. He’s describing how they came to be followers. And look at verse six. I have revealed you to those whom you gave me out of the world. They were yours. You gave them to me, and I’ve obeyed your word. I’m sorry. And they have obeyed your word. It’s interesting. It might have just slipped right past you. It was both God’s sovereignty and human agency. They’re your people, but they obeyed. How does that work? I’m not exactly sure. Verse seven. Now they know that everything you have, everything that you’ve given me comes from you. They’ve received these words from Christ as the words from God. Verse eight. For I gave them the words you gave me, and they accepted them. They’re receiving them. They’re accepting them. They knew with certainty that I came from you, and they believed that you sent me. So these people are followers of Christ because they’ve received the revelation of God in the person and work of Jesus Christ. They have trusted him as the very word of God, therefore they are his followers. He says, I pray for them, not praying for the world, but for those you’ve given me. For they are yours. All I have is yours, and all you have is mine. And again, this is one of those things. You bump into it and you go, how can he pray for just them? Doesn’t that feel wrong. How does he just pray for them? But notice what he’s praying for. His disciples is unique to the calling that they have. What he’s praying for his disciples, we’ll see it here in a moment. But he’s praying that they would be effective not for their own sake, for the sake of the world. In fact, next week when we pick it up again, we’ll see. In verse 23, he’s praying that they would experience unity, oneness with God and oneness with one another. Here’s why. So that the world would know that the Father sent the Son for the world. He prays for the disciples for the sake of the world. He loves the world. John 316 for God so loved the world. He loves everyone that he has made. But he prays specifically for his disciples so that they might be effective in the mission. Okay, here’s the thing I can encourage you to do. You might bracket out verses six to nine and put your question mark next to it and say, I don’t get it. And you’ll be in good company. But verse ten is the payload. And that’s the one I want you to underline. Says this second half of verse ten and glory has come to me through them. Jesus is telling us something about what it means to be one of his disciples. Glory has come to me through them. You and I, as His People, get to communicate the glory of God. It’s a high and holy calling. We get to communicate the glory of God. We are the visible display of God’s glory in this world. And we do that in a couple of different Ways. First off, we do it simply by being, when we tell our testimony, do you know what that’s about? God and his glory, what he has done in Christ that specifically affected you. You are a display of God’s glory simply by being a Christian. But the other thing that we need to think through is we also display God’s glory by living faithfully to Christ, by obeying him, and living in a way that’s pleasing to him and commending him to other people. But we, as followers of Christ, bring glory to him through our lives. And so as a Church, we want to think through, how could we do that? Well, how can we pray for that to happen? How can we plan and strategize so that we’re not just holding a 1 hour service on a Sunday morning, but we’re actually strategizing. So many people can experience the glory of Christ through encounters with followers of his all week long.
A PRAYER REGARDING MISSION
Well, that leads us to the second big prayer heading here, and it’s the prayer regarding mission. God has a mission, and it is a mission of making known the glory of Christ in his work. And he uses us in a profound way to do this. In fact, that’s the new arrangement. He is departing and we remain. So now, if somebody wants to know something about the glory of Christ, it has to come through us. Look at this. He says in verse eleven, I will remain in the world no longer, but they are still in the World, and I am Coming to you. It’s a statement of fact. Jesus is saying, the hour has come. Now is my departure. I will no longer be there with them. I’m going to come to the Father. I’m going to depart. But the disciples are still in the world. He didn’t take them with Said, you guys stay back. I’m going to the Father. Now through you, the Mission will move forward. So I have a couple of very important Prayer requests for you. Number one, Father, protect them. They’re going to need your protection, God, to be on this mission and a part of this mission, they will need the protection of the Father. Verse eleven. Holy Father, protect them by the power of your name. The name you gave me, so that they may be one as we are one. Protect them, protect them by that power of your name. He says, that’s what I did when I was here in the earthly body. That’s what he was doing. Verse twelve. While I was with them, I protected them and kept them safe. By that name that you gave me, none has been lost except the one doomed to destruction so that Scripture would be fulfilled. Jesus says, that was my role. That’s what I was doing. You gave me that name. You gave me that power, that authority. I fulfilled that calling and that assignment. None were lost except for the one doomed to destruction, Judas Iscariot. As Psalm 41 indicated, that’s exactly what he would do so that Scripture would be fulfilled. But he says, I did that while I was here. And that was a source of comfort to the disciples. It’s a hostile environment, but I was with them and I was protecting them. But now I’m departing, so I need them to know you’re going to carry this thing forward. That’s what he says in verse 13. I need them to know so that way my joy might be in them. I’m coming to you now, but I say these things while I’m still in the world so that they may have the full measure of my joy within them. He’s saying they need protection. And once I depart. They’re going to feel vulnerable, they’re going to feel exposed. They’re going to feel like there’s nothing preventing anybody from coming and arresting them and doing great harm to them. In fact, they scattered at his arrest. They went to their homes. They were fearful. But when the Holy Spirit comes, they realized the essence of this teaching. It clicked for them. They began to realize the power of the name that Jesus protected us with. Carries forward. The Father is now protecting us. So what can Christians do? And they did this. They went like this, NanA, Nana, Nana. In the first century, there was this hostility, but they had the joy of the Lord in them, so they could be arrested and flogged and they could be executed. But they were full of joy. So they were being arrested and in prison they’re joyfully singing and you go, how does that work? Well, they had the full measure of the joy of Christ in them because they knew nobody could touch them. They could be arrested for sure. They could be executed, they could be mistreated, but nobody could take from them what God had done in Christ. Therefore they were full of joy. And the apostle Paul, he puts it like this, man, you could kill me. That’d be a gain. Maybe I’ll have to stick around and continue to do ministry. That’s great, too. Win win. And he’s full of joy and he’s writing from a prison and he’s full of joy, saying, whether I live or die, I do either of those things in Christ’s name. That is joyful. So Jesus says, protect them so that they might have my joy. Protect them even though they live in the midst of hostility in a hostile environment. Look at verse 14. I’ve given them your word and the world has hated them, for they are not of the world any more than I am of the world. Now they’re yours. Now the world hates them. Why? Because they have transferred their allegiance. I’ve given them your word and the world has hated them. Now they are foreigners. Meaning this. Here’s how the Bible describes it. They have become citizens of heaven and therefore they are displaced. They’re aliens and exiles. They’re sojourners, they’re people who live. We’re firmly placed in Machesney Park or Rockton, Roscoe or South Beloit, or Loves Park. We have an address, but our greatest allegiance is to the kingdom of God. And now the world begins to look on us with suspicion. You’re no longer one of us and the world hates us. In that way. It begins to discern that we are people of the light, and they love the darkness, therefore they hate us. So Jesus is saying in that arrangement, Father, protect them because it’s going to be hard. The world is going to be hostile and hateful toward them. Verse 15. My prayer then is not that you take them out of the world, but that you protect them from the evil One. It’s not, beam me up, Scotty. It’s not. Christians are like, hey, let’s go get in the bomb shelter and just wait for the Lord to get back. Because we’re fearful of how bad it is out there. He says, no, they’re in the world, but they’re not from the world. I’m not asking, Father, that you take them out, that you somehow remove them from the difficulty of the assignment that they have. My prayer is not that you take them out of the world, but that in the midst of where they are, you protect them from the evil One. Protect them so that they might be effective in this mission and set them apart. That’s the second big prayer request that he has for us. He asks for our protection, but he asks that we would be different, says Verse 16, they are not of the world, even as I am not of it, because they’re different. We’re in the world, but we’re not from the world or of the world. We’re in the world, but we’re different because we’re followers of Christ. We become this distinct reality. And Jesus prays for that. That’s actually what verse 17 is about. It’s a big word, the fancy word, but it means to be set apart or consecrated. He says, sanctify them by the truth. Your word is truth. There’s a mission. God wants us to be a part of it. We’re in the world. We’re not being prayed for that we could easily hit, eject and remove ourselves from it. We’re in the world. We’re not from the world. And Jesus says, Father, make them different. Consecrate them for your purposes, by your word. Make them distinctly set over to the things of God. It’s a beautiful concept. If you read the Old Testament, there are instruments in the Temple that are consecrated, that are set apart. But do you know what they are? Shovels and wick trimmers and utensils for doing all these different things in there. They’re ordinary. You could pick them up at Walmart. But when they’re in the temple, because they are set apart to the things of God, they are uniquely special guys. That’s us. We’re a bunch of ordinary shovels. And Wick trimmers and utensils. Like in and of ourselves, there’s nothing super impressive about us. But the Lord says, I am consecrating them to the things of God. They are set apart for the things of God. They are sanctified. And this happens by the truth of God. We become more and more like Jesus, and therefore we become more and more useful to communicate his glory. Sanctify them, set them apart, consecrate them and let them know. Verse 18. Let them know their status. As you sent me into the world, Jesus says to the Father, I was sent into the world. I have sent them into the world. This is the identity of the Church. When somebody’s asking me, what is the Church about? Park City? Sure, you can answer that question, but what’s church supposed to be like? My answer is, the Church is supposed to be the missionary people of God. If you’re going to press me on what I think the Bible teaches through and through, we are supposed to be the people who are sent by the Lord himself to do his bidding. And we need to embrace that identity so that we might fulfill the calling that he’s given to us. As the Father sent the Son into the world, Jesus says, so in that same fashion, I have sent my disciples into the world. We are sent people. We go in his name, doing his bidding. We organize our church in this way. We really do believe that this is what we’re supposed to do. There are a lot of other ways to do church. In fact, there are a lot of ways to do church that are ingrown. Let’s make it about us. Let’s make this the best experience that we could possibly have. Who gives a rip about them, right? We don’t care. Let’s just make church about us. That’s not how we want to organize around here. We want to deploy our people into the world to make Christ known. I’ve got a buddy who was called by a Church and they said, we want to reach our area. We want to reach our community. And he took the job and he was very excited. He’s like, I’m so excited to be in a Church that is sending people into the world to make Christ known. And they started doing that, and then the Church said, you know what? This is actually not a good fit because we don’t like them coming into our stuff and messing it up. If the world gets in here, they’re going to spoil what we have. And he resigned because he realized that’s not the right place for him to be. There are a lot of Ways to do church where you do not catch what Jesus is saying here. And he says, I’m sending you. I’m sending you into the world. The people of God are the missionary people of God, commissioned by the Lord himself. Commissioned. He’s got a mission. He brings you into that, and he says, go to work tomorrow. But you’re not just doing your job. You’re not just making widgets. You’re not just doing whatever it is you do. You’Re going in the name of Christ to make his glory known. When you Go to the Places where you shop or the People that You Hang out with, you Go bearing His Name. He sends you into the world, but he doesn’t leave us alone. Verse 19. For them, I sanctify Myself that they too may be Truly sanctified. This isn’t just pull yourself up by your Bootstraps and make it happen. Just figure out how to go out in the world and make a splash. For Jesus, it’s saying, the reason why we can do any of this is because of his work. And his work comes first. He sanctified himself by Going to the cross and dying. He was completely set over to the things of God in his work so that we too May be Truly sanctified. See, the good News of the Gospel isn’t just the entry point into Christianity, it’s the Lifeblood of it. What he did on the cross carries us forward in our daily experience of God and in the calling that he has for us. It’s because of him and what he has performed for us through his Life, death and resurrection. We Believe in Him, and He Coops us into this Beautiful mission of reaching the world with his glory. So he prays for us. He prays that we would See his glory, the glory of who he is, the glory of his work, and we would be instruments of his glory. He calls us into that mission. He sends us out into the world, and he prays for our protection. It is hostile and hard. We’re going to need the name of God protecting us. And he prays that we would be set apart to the purposes of God so that we might be effective in this high and holy calling. And he himself is our life and our strength. He is our Savior. Let’s pray. Lord, we thank you so, so much for the good news of the Gospel, the rescuing work that you’ve performed for us. We pray, Lord, that you would help each and every one of us in here. And who can hear my voice online? We pray, Lord, that you would help us to believe in him for salvation. Lord, we are praying that you would reveal your glory to a watching world. And one day, we know this will be the large scale experience that every knee will bow and every tongue will confess that Jesus is Lord to the glory of God the Father. But in the meantime, God, we recognize. We’ve got a job to you. You have left the world, but we remain in it. We are in the world, but we’re not of the world. So we want to be different so people could see the beauty of Christ and what he’s done. So help us to do the mission that you’ve called us to. Need your help. And