[SPEAKER_00]: Welcome to the preaching ministry of the Agopic Baptist Church in George South Africa.
[SPEAKER_00]: Good morning.
[SPEAKER_00]: Certainly good to be together this morning.
[SPEAKER_00]: Being able to worship the Lord singing together and hearing God's Word together.
[SPEAKER_00]: We're going to be in John chapter seventeen, if you'd like to find your place, the Gospel of John and chapter seventeen.
[SPEAKER_00]: This prayer in chapter seventeen, the Lord Jesus Christ, is, it's like looking behind the curtain of the Holy of Holies and hearing
[SPEAKER_00]: the relationship between the Father and the Son as Jesus, praise and praise for us as well as for disciples and for us.
[SPEAKER_00]: And so we're able to get a look at the really the heart of God for us.
[SPEAKER_00]: And so it's a wonderful
[SPEAKER_00]: truth or wonderful revelation that the Lord has given us in this prayer.
[SPEAKER_00]: It's also probably remember if you were here last week and we looked at the first half of this prayer.
[SPEAKER_00]: It's an exclusive kind of prayer.
[SPEAKER_00]: Jesus specifically says he's not praying for the world but for those who belong to Him
[SPEAKER_00]: And for those who will believe in him through the disciples witness.
[SPEAKER_00]: And as you look and read through this prayer, you realize that it's not all laid out in a linear kind of fashion with one topic after the other.
[SPEAKER_00]: It's more of a cycle of things that are repeated and emphasized
[SPEAKER_00]: throughout the prayer.
[SPEAKER_00]: And as D.A.
[SPEAKER_00]: Carson points out, there's five specific petitions that are mentioned, but they're all woven together.
[SPEAKER_00]: And so this morning, as we look at this particular second half from verse thirteen, I want to not try to
[SPEAKER_00]: single out each specific request that Jesus makes, but to show how that these are all bound up together in two primary requests that he makes, or two primary topics that he's that he's praying about.
[SPEAKER_00]: And these two areas are one that we would be kept secure in Christ.
[SPEAKER_00]: And then secondly, that would be united in Christ.
[SPEAKER_00]: And if you look at verse eleven, you can see how those two things are brought together.
[SPEAKER_00]: He says, I am no longer in the world and yet they themselves are in the world.
[SPEAKER_00]: And I come to you, Holy Father, keep them in your name, the name which you have given me, that they may be one even as we are.
[SPEAKER_00]: So you can see there, those two, those two truths that we would be kept in the Father's name and that we might be one.
[SPEAKER_00]: Let's look first of all at this first area of prayer that we would be kept.
[SPEAKER_00]: Jesus praise it would be kept by the Father.
[SPEAKER_00]: And one of the things we could ask is why
[SPEAKER_00]: Why does he need to pray that?
[SPEAKER_00]: Why do we need to be kept?
[SPEAKER_00]: And we can immediately think and see that it's because we're in the world.
[SPEAKER_00]: And this world is a dangerous place for the Christian.
[SPEAKER_00]: This world system we're talking about is led by Satan stands in opposition to the Lord
[SPEAKER_00]: to the things that the Lord gives to us as priorities, the things that are important.
[SPEAKER_00]: God's will for us.
[SPEAKER_00]: And because we belong to Christ, and we would seek to take the Word of God to the world, then the world hates us just as it did Christ.
[SPEAKER_00]: And the reason that is so is because the world does not like
[SPEAKER_00]: the Word of God, the truth of the Word of God.
[SPEAKER_00]: It is opposed to the direction of this world, the thinking of this world.
[SPEAKER_00]: Notice verse fourteen through verse sixteen.
[SPEAKER_00]: Jesus says, I have given them your word and the world has hated them because they are not of the world, even as I am not of the world.
[SPEAKER_00]: I do not ask you to take them out of the world, but
[SPEAKER_00]: to keep them from the evil one.
[SPEAKER_00]: They are not of the world, even as I am not of the world.
[SPEAKER_00]: Although the disciples would come under real physical danger in the world, that is not the danger that Jesus has in mind here.
[SPEAKER_00]: The real danger that they faced in the world would be a spiritual danger.
[SPEAKER_00]: And that is the danger that we also face as believers in Christ is this spiritual danger.
[SPEAKER_00]: And so let's kind of lead you to think about three areas of danger that we face in the world.
[SPEAKER_00]: And first of all, the danger of conformity to the world.
[SPEAKER_00]: Paul says it this way in Romans twelve in verse two, and do not be conformed
[SPEAKER_00]: to this world, but be transformed by the renewing of your mind, so that you may approve what the will of God is, that which is good, pleasing, and perfect.
[SPEAKER_00]: The world under the rule of Satan has an agenda.
[SPEAKER_00]: And that agenda is set in opposition to the things of God.
[SPEAKER_00]: And by the very fact that we are in the world,
[SPEAKER_00]: That puts us in danger.
[SPEAKER_00]: It puts us in danger of coming under the influence of the world.
[SPEAKER_00]: The influence of the world's mindset, or we could say way of thinking about everything.
[SPEAKER_00]: And if we're left to ourselves in our natural condition, we will
[SPEAKER_00]: naturally be conformed to this downward pull of the world.
[SPEAKER_00]: This pull away from the high and holy things of God.
[SPEAKER_00]: And so we need God's help.
[SPEAKER_00]: We need God's protection.
[SPEAKER_00]: And directly related to this danger of conformity to becoming like the world and the way the world thinks
[SPEAKER_00]: is also this danger of moral corruption that's in the world.
[SPEAKER_00]: Romans six, again, Paul writes, therefore, this Romans six, twelve and verse thirteen.
[SPEAKER_00]: Therefore, do not let sin reign in your mortal body so that you obey its lust.
[SPEAKER_00]: And do not go on presenting your members to sin as instruments of unrighteousness.
[SPEAKER_00]: but present yourselves to God as those alive from the dead and your members as instruments of righteousness to God.
[SPEAKER_00]: And the Scripture gives us again and again these types of warnings and admonitions that we would live for him.
[SPEAKER_00]: We would live holy, separated, set apart from the world because there is this corruption that is in the world.
[SPEAKER_00]: And it is a danger for us, as we're in the world, that we get caught up in the way of the world, the moral corruption that's in the world.
[SPEAKER_00]: And closely related to that is the danger of compromise with the world as well.
[SPEAKER_00]: Satan is skilled at using our own weaknesses against us.
[SPEAKER_00]: We often have an unhealthy desire to be accepted or liked by the world, by those around us.
[SPEAKER_00]: That's just a natural desire.
[SPEAKER_00]: It's not necessarily a bad desire, but it can become a real weakness in our spiritual growth if we're too focused on everybody liking us.
[SPEAKER_00]: or especially if those bodies are people who are in opposition to God in His Word.
[SPEAKER_00]: There's many believers that have compromised and softened the hard sayings from God's Word.
[SPEAKER_00]: When God's Word is proclaimed, it affends some people because God's Word
[SPEAKER_00]: It has sharp edges many times because of the truths that are presented.
[SPEAKER_00]: And especially when they're presented in a mindset of the world that is in opposition to the truth of God's Word.
[SPEAKER_00]: And so oftentimes there's an effort made to conform to compromise and make what God has said easier to hear.
[SPEAKER_00]: in the world.
[SPEAKER_00]: And some have thought that if they just make God a little more likable to the world, then the world would accept Him.
[SPEAKER_00]: But when you begin to do that, you no longer have the God of the Bible.
[SPEAKER_00]: You no longer have God's Word.
[SPEAKER_00]: And when you compromise the truth of God,
[SPEAKER_00]: Notice, Paul again, in two Corinthians, eleven, and verse three and four, he had a concern about the believers at Corinth.
[SPEAKER_00]: And he says, I fear that as the serpent deceived Eve by his craftiness, your minds will be corrupted from the simplicity and purity of devotion to Christ.
[SPEAKER_00]: So you can see that Satan is working by his craftiness and by his deceit
[SPEAKER_00]: to lead people away from their devotion because of the simplicity and purity of devotion to Christ.
[SPEAKER_00]: He says, for if one comes and preaches another Jesus whom we did not preach or you receive a different spirit which you did not receive or a different gospel which you did not accept, you bear with this beautifully.
[SPEAKER_00]: In other words,
[SPEAKER_00]: They were easily mislead to accept some other truth.
[SPEAKER_00]: Some other false version of the truth of God and Satan in his craftiness does that in such a way in the world and through the world's message that it can sound close to the truth.
[SPEAKER_00]: It can sound pretty good.
[SPEAKER_00]: It can sound reasonable.
[SPEAKER_00]: And so we have to be on our guard and we need God's protection from these dangers.
[SPEAKER_00]: When you think about these dangers and many other dangers that are in the world, some have come to think that it would be better to just be isolated from the world completely.
[SPEAKER_00]: And some have sought to do that.
[SPEAKER_00]: but that's not God's will for us and me times when people try to do that although they can to some degree isolate themselves from the world they still have their sinful heart they took with them and God's plan for us is that He wants to do something in us and He wants to do something in the world by our being in the world
[SPEAKER_00]: Notice verse fifteen he says I do not ask that you take them out of the world but to keep them from the evil one evil one being a a reference to Satan so God's plan is for us to be in the world but not of the world in other words not being coming like the world we're to be distinct from the world
[SPEAKER_00]: as light and salt, as Matthew would write in chapter five, let not, or sorry, let your light shine before me in such a way that they may see your good works and glorify your father who's in heaven.
[SPEAKER_00]: So there's to be something in us that the world can identify as not just coming from us.
[SPEAKER_00]: but is from the Lord.
[SPEAKER_00]: And so since we're to be in the world, but not be like the world, we need God's power to keep us, as he said in the verse, fifteen, to keep them from the evil one.
[SPEAKER_00]: And so we could ask another question, as how does God do that?
[SPEAKER_00]: How does He keep us
[SPEAKER_00]: And I want to show you two ways in which he does that.
[SPEAKER_00]: First of all, he sets us apart from the world by regeneration.
[SPEAKER_00]: This is the new birth.
[SPEAKER_00]: We talk about regeneration, and we're talking about the new birth.
[SPEAKER_00]: And the first part of this prayer, we've seen this emphasis on being kept in his name.
[SPEAKER_00]: Jesus prays that the Father would keep us in his name, or eleven and twelve in particular.
[SPEAKER_00]: And then in verse sixteen he says, they are not of the world, even as I am not of the world.
[SPEAKER_00]: And so just as Jesus came from above to the earth, those that have turned to the Lord Jesus Christ in faith, turn from Himself to trust in the Lord Jesus Christ, they are born again, are born from above.
[SPEAKER_00]: and no longer belong to this world.
[SPEAKER_00]: We are new creations in Christ Jesus we're told.
[SPEAKER_00]: And that this world is no longer our home.
[SPEAKER_00]: And the Scripture will talk about our being citizens of heaven.
[SPEAKER_00]: And that we are sojourners in exile in the world.
[SPEAKER_00]: And why this scripture used that kind of language is because we are no longer of the world.
[SPEAKER_00]: We've been taken out of the kingdom of darkness and brought into the kingdom of light.
[SPEAKER_00]: And so we see here that just as Jesus kept those whom the Father had given him
[SPEAKER_00]: Jesus prays that the Father will keep those who belong to Him.
[SPEAKER_00]: And we see this in the prayer that Jesus is praying.
[SPEAKER_00]: And one of the things that's highlighted and emphasized in the gospel of John is Jesus points out that all those that the Lord says he keeps.
[SPEAKER_00]: And He says that none were lost.
[SPEAKER_00]: And he says, with the exception of Judas a scariot, and he makes a point clear, it's because he did not belong to him, but that he was a son of a tradition, son of a destruction.
[SPEAKER_00]: And so this is something that the Lord has emphasized again and again, that he keeps us.
[SPEAKER_00]: In the short letter of Jude, Jude writes and warns about
[SPEAKER_00]: false teachers, pastates.
[SPEAKER_00]: But in the beginning and the end of his letter, he gives this confidence statement about those who belong to the Lord that they are kept by the Lord.
[SPEAKER_00]: Notice the introduction of Jude one.
[SPEAKER_00]: He says, to those who are the called beloved in God the Father and kept for Jesus Christ.
[SPEAKER_00]: This is the Jesus praise that as He has kept those who belong to Him at the Fatherhood, given Him in that many praise that the Father would keep them.
[SPEAKER_00]: And here, Jude says that they are kept by the Father for Jesus Christ.
[SPEAKER_00]: And then right at the end of Jude verse twenty-four and twenty-five,
[SPEAKER_00]: We have this wonderful benediction closing praise to God.
[SPEAKER_00]: He says now to Him who is able to keep you from stumbling and to make you stand in the presence of His glory, blameless with great joy.
[SPEAKER_00]: To the only God, our Savior, through Jesus Christ, our Lord, beg glory and majesty and might and authority before all time and now and forever.
[SPEAKER_00]: Amen.
[SPEAKER_00]: What a great truth that the Lord is keeping us.
[SPEAKER_00]: And so God keeps us about setting us apart positionally.
[SPEAKER_00]: In other words, as a son of God, we are kept in this position, belonging to Him.
[SPEAKER_00]: This is regeneration.
[SPEAKER_00]: But God does more than that.
[SPEAKER_00]: He also keeps us about setting us apart practically
[SPEAKER_00]: practically in our daily living.
[SPEAKER_00]: This is sanctification.
[SPEAKER_00]: And so we see that he sets us apart from the world by sanctification of Heillach mocking makes us holy.
[SPEAKER_00]: This work of sanctification is the process of growth and change to more and more B.O.B.
[SPEAKER_00]: to God's Word.
[SPEAKER_00]: and to be conformed to the likeness of the Lord Jesus Christ.
[SPEAKER_00]: And this is the ongoing work of God in us, appalled, and to Corinthians three writes in verse eight, but we all with unveiled face the holding as in a mirror the glory of the Lord, are being transformed into the same image from glory to glory, just as from
[SPEAKER_00]: the Lord, the Spirit.
[SPEAKER_00]: And so this is the work that God is doing in us to change us as we see the Lord Jesus Christ, He's glory.
[SPEAKER_00]: We are being transformed.
[SPEAKER_00]: We're being changed little by little to become more and more like Him.
[SPEAKER_00]: You remember when previous chapters John records for us that Jesus promised the disciples that with his departure he would sin the Holy Spirit of God and that when he come he would be not only with them but in them.
[SPEAKER_00]: And it is the Spirit of God that is doing this work in us as Jesus uses the phrase that He is in us.
[SPEAKER_00]: Jesus in us and the occasion he would say the Father is in us.
[SPEAKER_00]: The Father is in us.
[SPEAKER_00]: Jesus is in us through the person of the Holy Spirit of God who is with us and is by this work of the Spirit of God that we are being transformed and the Spirit of God
[SPEAKER_00]: uses the Word of God in this process, this work of sanctifying, keeping us and changing us practically.
[SPEAKER_00]: Notice that in the verse seventeen, Jesus says that the Word, your Word, is truth.
[SPEAKER_00]: It's not
[SPEAKER_00]: It's not just truth, but it is the truth.
[SPEAKER_00]: The Word of God is the standard about which everything else, every thought, every idea, every opinion is to be judged, to be brought under this penetrating light of God's Word.
[SPEAKER_00]: He says in verse seventeen, sanctify them, sanctifies
[SPEAKER_00]: is another way of talking about being holy, being set apart for God.
[SPEAKER_00]: It has its root in the word holy, or holiness sanctify them by the truth.
[SPEAKER_00]: Your word is truth.
[SPEAKER_00]: As you sent me into the world, I also send them into the world.
[SPEAKER_00]: For their sake, I sanctify myself
[SPEAKER_00]: that they themselves also may be sanctified and truth.
[SPEAKER_00]: When Jesus says He sanctifies Himself, He's not saying that He needs to be more holy, but that He's set Himself apart for this singular purpose of obeying the will of the Father.
[SPEAKER_00]: He's come with this singled-mindedness to live and to die for our sins.
[SPEAKER_00]: And we see all through He's
[SPEAKER_00]: He's on this timetable.
[SPEAKER_00]: He's on this journey to the cross.
[SPEAKER_00]: And he says he's said himself a part that they themselves also may be sanctified in truth.
[SPEAKER_00]: And so we see the Lord Jesus Christ coming as the Word of God, giving us the truth, concerning himself and the Father.
[SPEAKER_00]: This is the work of God in us.
[SPEAKER_00]: But we are not to be passive in this work that God is doing.
[SPEAKER_00]: We as believers must actively pursue this practical sanctification.
[SPEAKER_00]: And that's why you have the multiple commands in the scripture that we would set ourselves to this task that we would discipline ourselves, that we would sanctify ourselves, that we would keep ourselves
[SPEAKER_00]: God is keeping us, and He will not fail.
[SPEAKER_00]: But He commands us to also keep ourselves in the love of God, to keep ourselves separate from the world, to obey, to follow.
[SPEAKER_00]: And the many other commands that we have in Scripture that we might pursue after this practical sanctification that is set before us.
[SPEAKER_00]: Notice, Philippians II.
[SPEAKER_00]: He says, so then my beloved, verse twelve, Philippians two, twelve, so then my beloved, just as you have always obeyed, not as in my presence only, but now much more in my absence, work out your salvation with fear and trembling.
[SPEAKER_00]: For it is God who is at work in you, both to will and to work for his good pleasure.
[SPEAKER_00]: such an important couple of verses for us as we think about the relationship between what God has done and what He's called us to do.
[SPEAKER_00]: God is actively at work in us but He says that we are to work it out practically in our lives in practice.
[SPEAKER_00]: And so this phrase worked out your own salvation is the work of sanctification.
[SPEAKER_00]: It's applying
[SPEAKER_00]: what God has done for us, what He's called us to, what He's positionally done and making us his own children.
[SPEAKER_00]: He calls us to live out, practically.
[SPEAKER_00]: But that living out is not accomplished by our own strength, even by our own will.
[SPEAKER_00]: Because He says that He has worked in us both to will, in other words, the desire
[SPEAKER_00]: and to work or to do.
[SPEAKER_00]: So the ability is also there for us in the Lord that we can be pleasing unto the Lord.
[SPEAKER_00]: And so what a wonderful truth the Lord has given us.
[SPEAKER_00]: He gives us these commands that admonish us to follow Him, to obey Him,
[SPEAKER_00]: And then he gives us puts within us as part of our salvation, a desire to do those things.
[SPEAKER_00]: A desire to please him, a desire to obey him, a desire to know him.
[SPEAKER_00]: No is word in a better way.
[SPEAKER_00]: And then by the working spirit of God and the Word of God, he enables us to do that very thing.
[SPEAKER_00]: You know, it's interesting when you use words like these words like holiness,
[SPEAKER_00]: or words like sanctification.
[SPEAKER_00]: Many people think, boy, those words are the opposite of having joy.
[SPEAKER_00]: When you use those words in the world, they think, oh, that's a drudgery, that's misery.
[SPEAKER_00]: It takes all the fun out of life.
[SPEAKER_00]: But that's just the opposite.
[SPEAKER_00]: When the Lord speaks of sanctification, he's talking about, this is the fullness of joy.
[SPEAKER_00]: the joy of the Lord that He has for us.
[SPEAKER_00]: The Scripture teaches us that sanctification is the path to fullness of joy.
[SPEAKER_00]: In the world there are pleasures for sure, but they're all fleeting pleasures and they in the end bring misery.
[SPEAKER_00]: And many of you experience that misery that the world gives you in the end.
[SPEAKER_00]: and we've all to some degree felt the pain in the hardships and the disappointments that are in the world.
[SPEAKER_00]: And so the Lord, He offers us joy, knows how He says in verse thirteen, but now I come to you, speaking to the Father, but now I come to you.
[SPEAKER_00]: And these things I speak in the world
[SPEAKER_00]: so that they may have my joy made full in themselves.
[SPEAKER_00]: This is something that John highlights as Jesus speaks.
[SPEAKER_00]: We saw it chapter fifteen about the abiding relationship in the Lord and this joy.
[SPEAKER_00]: And he comes the beginning of one John
[SPEAKER_00]: first three verses and talking about this relationship that we have with the Father and the joy in that in that relationship.
[SPEAKER_00]: And so this fullness of joy that he speaks of here is found in our relationship with the Lord.
[SPEAKER_00]: While I want to transition to this second part of what he prays about here, this second theme that keeps reoccurring
[SPEAKER_00]: And that is that Jesus prays that we would be united in God.
[SPEAKER_00]: I think you see it's summed up in verse twenty one.
[SPEAKER_00]: He says that they may all be one even as you father are in me and I knew that they also may be in us so that the world may believe that you sit me.
[SPEAKER_00]: Notice that as he talks about this oneness or this unity, he's talking about the unity of the Godhead.
[SPEAKER_00]: God the Father, God the Son, and God the Holy Spirit.
[SPEAKER_00]: The Holy Spirit is not named.
[SPEAKER_00]: He is referred to when Jesus talks about what God is doing or Jesus is doing in us, being in us.
[SPEAKER_00]: And so we have this prayer of unity.
[SPEAKER_00]: And we see this unity in many ways within the Godhead, but particularly in this prayer, this is something that's highlighted as Jesus talks about, as we've already seen about Jesus keeping us, praying the Father would keep us.
[SPEAKER_00]: He prays about being sent by the Father,
[SPEAKER_00]: glorifying the Father and praying that the Father would glorify Him.
[SPEAKER_00]: There is this reciprocal type of language where each are doing things, but they're doing them in such a way that the same thing can be attributed to the Father and to the Son and to the Holy Spirit as well.
[SPEAKER_00]: Let's just notice a couple of things that he speaks of here.
[SPEAKER_00]: First of all,
[SPEAKER_00]: Christian unity, this one, is based on a genuine relationship with God.
[SPEAKER_00]: To have a relationship with God, you must be joined to Christ through genuine faith in Him.
[SPEAKER_00]: Back in chapter fourteen, Jesus said it this way in verse six, I am the way and the truth and the life
[SPEAKER_00]: No one comes to the Father, but through me.
[SPEAKER_00]: It's pretty straightforward, isn't it?
[SPEAKER_00]: He's the only way.
[SPEAKER_00]: You often hear many even religious groups trying to unify different people from different faiths.
[SPEAKER_00]: You can even see Christian groups trying to create this superficial kind of unity around some shared value.
[SPEAKER_00]: They can be good things, important things.
[SPEAKER_00]: I like peace or love.
[SPEAKER_00]: It's all good and important things.
[SPEAKER_00]: There's this movement, this effort, and they would claim verses like here in Jesus' prayer that we would be one that would be unified, that the world could see our oneness, our unity, and they will try to do things with Catholics, with Muslims, with Hindus, with other religious groups, Eastern mysticism,
[SPEAKER_00]: And with this effort that we would be united.
[SPEAKER_00]: But that kind of unity is not what Jesus is praying about.
[SPEAKER_00]: He's talking about a very exclusive unity.
[SPEAKER_00]: And this unity is based upon the gospel of Jesus Christ.
[SPEAKER_00]: That's where we find our unity, our oneness is in Him.
[SPEAKER_00]: the good news of the Lord Jesus Christ.
[SPEAKER_00]: As believers, we can disagree on many things.
[SPEAKER_00]: Unity doesn't mean uniformity that we're all the same and we all believe exactly the same on everything.
[SPEAKER_00]: We could even disagree on some important things like the extent of the atonement.
[SPEAKER_00]: We can disagree on how
[SPEAKER_00]: that God is sovereign and everything and man is also accountable, responsible.
[SPEAKER_00]: We can have different views on the end-time events, things like a win and how the rapture is going to take place.
[SPEAKER_00]: But there's some things that the Bible presents, there's doctrines that we have in the Scriptures that are not negotiable.
[SPEAKER_00]: things like the soul authority of the Scripture.
[SPEAKER_00]: In other words, we can't have an attitude while you can take it or leave it, or you can keep the parts you like and leave off the parts you don't like.
[SPEAKER_00]: And now this is not something that God has given that's up for grabs.
[SPEAKER_00]: The soul authority of the Scripture in its entirety, the revelation of God the Father, God the Son and God the Holy Spirit, though
[SPEAKER_00]: very difficult to fully grasp and get a hold of.
[SPEAKER_00]: These are things that are presented to us as something that is concrete and solid.
[SPEAKER_00]: That's not variable.
[SPEAKER_00]: Salvation.
[SPEAKER_00]: Another example.
[SPEAKER_00]: Salvation is the work of God by His grace along
[SPEAKER_00]: And it's received by faith alone in the person of the work of the Lord Jesus Christ alone.
[SPEAKER_00]: And there's no other way as Jesus is a re-artiquoted Jesus recording in John fourteen verse six.
[SPEAKER_00]: There's no other way to the Father but through me.
[SPEAKER_00]: And so these are things that unite us, this revelation of God that He's given.
[SPEAKER_00]: These core essential doctrines are things that unite us in Christ.
[SPEAKER_00]: And it doesn't matter where we're from, what our ethnic background is, what our financial status is, what part of the world we're from, what language we speak, where united in Christ.
[SPEAKER_00]: And this is the unity that the Lord is speaking of, where united in Him through salvation.
[SPEAKER_00]: And this revelation
[SPEAKER_00]: seems to be what Jesus is referring to in verse twenty two notice there he says the glory which you have given me I have given to them that they may be one just as we are one now what is in what sense did Jesus give his disciples and us his glory and I believe the answer he's he's given
[SPEAKER_00]: In chapter one of John, or at least it's it's it's it's by and large the answer This glory that he's given to us notice he says in verse fourteen talking about Jesus as the word He says in the word became flesh and dwelt among us and we saw his glory the glory as of the only begotten of the Father
[SPEAKER_00]: full of grace and truth.
[SPEAKER_00]: That's the revelation of the glory that the disciples in those believers saw was the glory of the Father, full of glory from the Father, full of grace and truth.
[SPEAKER_00]: And then he says in verse sixteen, for of his fullness, nor does this grace and truth, of this fullness we have received and grace
[SPEAKER_00]: upon grace.
[SPEAKER_00]: So God's grace, in the coming of the Lord Jesus Christ, and dying for us, grace has been poured out on us through the truth of the Lord Jesus Christ.
[SPEAKER_00]: And it is this grace that has come to us in salvation that unites us to God and to each other.
[SPEAKER_00]: And I believe this is what Jesus is emphasizing here, the fact of our unity in Him.
[SPEAKER_00]: There's another aspect here that this Christian unity, it has an outward focus in purpose.
[SPEAKER_00]: This is very important because although our unity in Christ is exclusive around the gospel of Lord Jesus Christ,
[SPEAKER_00]: It's not like an exclusive club that tries to keep people out.
[SPEAKER_00]: Now, there's this outward focus of the unity that we have.
[SPEAKER_00]: An outward purpose, Nose verse twenty says, I do not ask on behalf of these alone.
[SPEAKER_00]: In other words, not just these disciples, but for those also who will believe in me through their word.
[SPEAKER_00]: In other words, through their testimony as they take the gospel.
[SPEAKER_00]: Many others will believe, and Jesus is praying for them, and that they would also believe there's this outward focus.
[SPEAKER_00]: Jesus is looking beyond these disciples to all who will believe, which obviously includes us as believers today.
[SPEAKER_00]: And so our unity, our love for each other, which is often highlighted in the Scripture, how we are to forgive one another,
[SPEAKER_00]: If you even look up the one and others in the scripture, there's multiple ways in which we are to function in unity, caring for one another, forgiving one another, serving one another.
[SPEAKER_00]: All of those things that come under are the heading of love, not just a sentimental emotional kind of softy love, but a down-to-earth hard
[SPEAKER_00]: serving, doing the difficult things because we really care for each other, kind of love.
[SPEAKER_00]: Whether you feel like it or not, and hopefully you do feel like it, and hopefully you do have sentimental feelings, but even if you don't, we are to do the work of love, the serving of love, the caring of love.
[SPEAKER_00]: And it's important because not only of our functioning together, but as our testimony to a lost world.
[SPEAKER_00]: And it's through our unity and our love for each other, that is one of the important ways that God brings others unto Himself.
[SPEAKER_00]: Again, in verse twenty-one in the verse twenty-one.
[SPEAKER_00]: He says, so that the world may believe that you sent me.
[SPEAKER_00]: And in verse twenty three he says, I am them again a reference to the coming spirit of God that would be in them and you and me that they may be perfected in unity.
[SPEAKER_00]: There was there there to be growing up maturing
[SPEAKER_00]: to a full unity so that the world may know that you sit me and love me even as you have loved and I love them even as you have loved me.
[SPEAKER_00]: And so there's again this focus on the relationship within the Godhead.
[SPEAKER_00]: Father Son is highlighted here as an example of the unity that Jesus wants for us.
[SPEAKER_00]: so that we would have this oneness in Him, which is reflected in the oneness that we have among each other.
[SPEAKER_00]: And so how we relate to our brothers and sisters' in Christ is to be a message to the world, an evidence that Jesus is God's Son, as we proclaim His name, we say, we are followers of Christ in that
[SPEAKER_00]: by our living, by our, how we relate to one another.
[SPEAKER_00]: We show that we are united in love with the Father and with the Son.
[SPEAKER_00]: Well, lastly, there's a, this Christian unity has a, has a future focus in expectation, not just for today.
[SPEAKER_00]: Jesus leads his disciples and he leads us to look beyond the present situation, with all of its troubles and problems that we face,
[SPEAKER_00]: and to look to our future glory with God.
[SPEAKER_00]: And so this unity that he's speaking of here has a future focus.
[SPEAKER_00]: Notice verse twenty four.
[SPEAKER_00]: Father, I desire that they also whom you have given me will be with me where I am.
[SPEAKER_00]: And so this unity that he's speaking of is not just a kind of
[SPEAKER_00]: an idea of unity.
[SPEAKER_00]: Now he's talking about a real future presence together with the Lord.
[SPEAKER_00]: He says, so that they may see my glory which you have given me for you love me before the foundation of the world.
[SPEAKER_00]: And so these are the things that the Lord praised for us about.
[SPEAKER_00]: And if the Lord is praying this way,
[SPEAKER_00]: We ought to be praying this way also in thinking this way in our lives for the Lord.
[SPEAKER_00]: I want to close simply with the closing verses that he gives in his prayer here.
[SPEAKER_00]: I don't think we can end in a better way because he comes back to these themes and things that he's prayed and lived for his believers, for his seventeenth of his twenty-five and twenty-six.
[SPEAKER_00]: Our sorry chapter, seventeenth, right at the end of the chapter.
[SPEAKER_00]: O righteous Father, although the world has not known you, yet I have known you, and these have known that you sent me, and I have made your name known to them, and will make it known, so that the love with which you love me may be in them, and I in them.
[SPEAKER_00]: This is something that knowledge Christ prayed about.
[SPEAKER_00]: He's continuing this work through the person of the Spirit of God in us.
[SPEAKER_00]: And so as we think about our life, our Christian life, we're to be cooperating with Him, allowing the Spirit of God to feel us with His will, with His presence in the sense of leading us
[SPEAKER_00]: and guiding us and our dependence upon him so that he indeed will be seen in us that his love would reflect the kind of love between the Father and the Son and is only by the Spirit of God that that can happen.
[SPEAKER_00]: And it can only happen to the degree that God works that work in our hearts and our lives.
[SPEAKER_00]: And I pray that that will be true this week in our lives to some measure.
[SPEAKER_00]: Not that we'll ever reach that goal here in this life.
[SPEAKER_00]: But one day, as he prays about here, we are going to see him in his glory.
[SPEAKER_00]: We're going to be with him.
[SPEAKER_00]: We're going to be glorified together with him.
[SPEAKER_00]: And so we can hold that.
[SPEAKER_00]: hold that truth before us as we seek to obey Him and live for Him this week.
[SPEAKER_00]: Father, I pray that it would be so in our lives, I pray that you would be honored and glorified by how we live and how we live together, that you would be exalted, that you would be honored, and that our lives would be a testimony to the world around us, not only what we say Father, but what we do and how we do it.
[SPEAKER_00]: How will we treat one another?
[SPEAKER_00]: How will we talk to one another?
[SPEAKER_00]: How will we talk about one another?
[SPEAKER_00]: And especially how will we talk about you?
[SPEAKER_00]: As we submit our lives to you, we pray in Jesus name.
[SPEAKER_00]: Amen.