Summary
Pastor Safrit walks through John 17:1-19, highlighting Jesus' prayer for His disciples as He prepares for the cross. He emphasizes the importance of abiding in Christ, revealing that true joy comes from a relationship with Him, even amidst trials. The sermon encourages believers to seek God's glory, embrace their identity in Christ, and live out their faith with purpose and unity, reflecting the sanctification that comes through God's truth.
Housekeeping and Introduction
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If you have a child who wants to go to the children's church, that can be dismissed now. Thank you, choir, for singing. Thank you for worshiping with us. We are continuing, and we're in our last two weeks of looking at our Abide in Me passage.
John chapter 17 is where we'll be at today. John chapter 17.
We're going to look at the first 19 verses as we walk through this. As you're flipping there, I just want to recap your mind. It started as Jesus with his disciples in that upper room, a very intimate setting. They had the Lord's Supper. Jesus washed their feet.
Judas betrayed him and walks out. As we walk through that, he is walking to the cross.
He knows their hearts are heavy. He talks about abiding in him and the vine, abiding in the branch, and what that looks like as they walk through life hand in hand, and how Jesus is that life giver, how he gives us life through that vine that gives life to those branches.
Then last week we looked at the joy that Jesus gives us, and how we can have lasting joy even when the world seems chaotic, even when the world seems like it doesn't even make sense.
Jesus comes back to that joy today as he begins praying for his disciples, and we'll look at that in just a minute. But we're going to look at this week and next week, the two prayers, one prayer of Jesus, but I'm going to break it into two weeks. And so some people,
the Lord's Prayer, how many of us would know the Lord's Prayer?
Our Father, which art in heaven, hallowed be thy name. A lot of people say that's the Lord's Prayer, and that is the Lord's Prayer. Jesus is teaching his disciples how to pray, but a lot of commentators actually look to John chapter 17 as the actual Lord's Prayer. As Jesus praying,
we get a glimpse of what it would have looked like when Jesus would have went away to a mountaintop. We don't get those recorded in Scripture.
It just says that Jesus went away and prayed for an extended period of time, and the disciples couldn't find out where he was at, and then he would come back, and he said, I've got to go and pray to my Father.
This is the curtain getting pulled back, and the disciples hearing his prayer. And so we can see and model our prayer life after how Jesus prayed, and specifically he prays for three things that we'll look at this week and next week.
Reading Scripture Together
But out of reading of God's Word, let's stand and we'll read these 19 verses, and then we'll conclude this next week.
But for sake of time, I just felt like it would be good to break this up into two parts. First it says this, Jesus spoke these things. And so we know the disciples around hearing him. He looked up to heaven and said, Father, the hour has come.
Glorify your Son so that your Son may glorify you,
since you gave him authority over all people, so that he may give eternal life to everyone who you have given him.
This is eternal life that they may know him, the only true God and the one that they have sent, Jesus Christ.
I've glorified you on this earth by completing the work that you gave me to do. Now, Father, glorify me in your presence with that glory that I had with you before the world existed.
Verse 6, I have revealed your name to the people you gave me. And from before the world, they were yours. You gave them to me, and they have kept your word.
Now they know that everything that you have given to me is from you, because I have given them the words you gave me. They have received them and have known them for certain that I came from you. They have believed me, and you sent me.
I pray for them, and I am praying for the whole world, but for those that you have given me, because they are yours. Everything I have is yours, and everything you have is mine, and I am glorified in them.
Verse 11, I am no longer in the world, but they are in the world, and I am coming to you. Holy Father, protect them by your name that you have given me so that they may be as we are one.
While I was with them, I was protected by them by your name, but you have given me that I guarded them, and not one of them is lost except the son of destruction so that scripture may be fulfilled.
Verse 13, Now I am coming to you, and I speak these things in the world so that they may have their joy completed in them. I have given them your word.
The world hated them because they are not of this world, just as you are not of this world.
I am not praying that you take them out of this world, but that you would protect them from the evil one. They are not of the world, just as I am not of the world. Sanctify by truth.
Your word is truth. As you sent me into the world, I have also sent them into the world. I sanctify myself for them so that they may also be sanctified by the truth.
Praying Like Jesus
Lord, bless your word. Bless the reading of your word this morning.
Help us to glean some insights on how you prayed to your Father so that we can become more like you. And if there's anyone here that doesn't know you, then today would be the day they come to know you, as scripture says, that they would have eternal life. In your name we pray.
Amen. You may be seated. As a pastor, I shared the story last week of being able to be in the room as new life is given, as a baby comes into this world.
And what a joy that is to sit there and hold the hand of a mother that's a first-time mom or to be able to experience new life with a first-time dad or grandparents that have their first grandbaby. What an awesome opportunity and enjoyment that is.
But on the flip side of that, I also get to be in the room with those that take their last breath.
There is some joy in that moment of the Father being able to impart some wisdom to the sons, the last words that we often look at.
And unfortunately, I have been in those rooms probably more often than the rooms with the first-time moms. But a couple of years ago, I was in a room with a man. He was dying in the hospital room.
And I'm not going to share the name, but we were there. And the machines were beeping.
If you've ever been in a hospital room, the mood was just like on edge almost.
You didn't really know how to handle it. And as the final moments were coming and his time was coming to an end, he did something that I hadn't seen done many times.
He called each of his kids around and he began to sort of tell them some things. This is what he didn't do.
He didn't go through and talk about how much he had accomplished. Look at the degrees I got. Look at the career I had. Look at how much money I made. Look at all the things that I had been awarded for or the recognition. He simply brought them in.
He brought them in one by one. And I'm just sort of looking on the outset of watching this. And he brought them in close and he told the first one, he said, stay close to God. Don't drift. You're the oldest.
The family's going to be looking to you now. Now I need you to stay strong for me. He pulled the second one in and he said, take care of your mom. Your mom's going to need you now more than ever. I'm going to be gone.
She's going to need help. I need you to take care of your mom.
The third one he brought in and he said, the family's crazy sometimes. You know the family's crazy. If you have a family like mine, you know the family's crazy. He said, family can be crazy sometimes. I'm asking you to help keep the peace in the family. Help keep the unity in the family.
Keep things together. Try to be the person that's going to not let division tear the family apart, as I've seen it done many times. And this moment after he spoke to his three kids, he sort of was too weak to speak individually.
And he just in a moment stood there and said on his hospital bed and began praying for the family. This is what he prayed.
He said, I began praying for all the family out loud so that they would have protection,
unity, and the future of their life in this family to be able to serve God.
In this moment, you begin to see someone who, he didn't have this like written out, rehearsed. It was just flowing from the heart.
It's like he had done it every single day of his life. He had prayed for protection.
He had prayed for unity. He had prayed for the glue of the family to be held together. And it was just an overflowing of what had been brought into him. I often use a bottle illustration of whatever's inside the bottle, when it's shaking, it's going to come out. And this is what's happening.
The end of his life is coming, and the overflow of what has been put into his life is now coming out. And this is the illustration or the idea that we get to see here in John 17. Jesus has lived his life. He's done everything he has done to glorify the Father.
He gets to the end of his life, and we get a small glimpse of his prayer. He's ours from the cross.
He's about to take on the weight of the world that the Bible says is unbearable for any person in this world to take on. And yet he is about to take on the sin of the cross. And what does he do?
Right before he gets traded, right before he gets betrayed by Judas, he says, men, disciples, we need to pray.
We need to go to the Father. I need to teach you another time of how to pray. And this is what he does. He prays not just for himself.
He prays for him. He prays for his disciples. And as we look at next week, he prays for the church, specifically for you and for me. This is not just a prayer that we can say, okay,
Jesus' Mission and Identity
I'm going to take this prayer, and I'm going to model it, and I'm going to take the aspects and the attributes of this prayer and apply it to my life. Specifically, Jesus is saying, this is the heartbeat of how I've lived my life.
I've been here for three and a half years teaching you. I'm 33 years old.
I'm at the moment where my life is about to come to an end, and I am telling you, this is how you need to live your life. And oftentimes, as I've said before, as it's been preached to me, the last words are lasting words.
This is the last prayer we have of Jesus. And this is the idea of how we can live our life as he is telling us, as he is praying, as he is saying, this is the things that matter the most to me.
These are the things that give me glory, that give me joy, that give me the reason that I'm going to the cross. And this is what he lays out for two simple points. The first one is this, the prayer for his mission.
Verses one through five begin to lay this out. He says this, he says, Father, the hour has come. Now understand, he takes this moment and he says, Lord, Father, the hour's coming.
It's here, it's upon us. This is not a panicked prayer. This is not a prayer of, Lord, I didn't know this was going to happen. God, all of a sudden, I'm leading up to this and I'm about to go to the cross. No, it's calm. It's purposeful. It's almost resolving of,
God, you put me on this life, in this world for a reason. God, you designed me for a purpose.
You have given me an identity. You have given me a cause to do. I'm doing that. And now my life is finished. My life is complete. And I am satisfied with doing the things that you have called me to do. And Jesus in this moment is saying, God, you sent me here.
I've done the things you've called me to do. I've went through pain. I've went through heartache. As we looked at this morning, in our Sunday school class, the temptations of Jesus,
how he went through the garden, as he went through the wilderness, and he was tempted of the three different temptations, the pride of life, the pride of the eyes, and the lust of the flesh.
He said, I've went through all of these things, and I've accomplished it for your honor and for your glory. And now my time has come to finish the work.
Not to get to the very end. Not to get to be one month away from retirement and saying, well, maybe I'm just not going to retire. I'm just going to keep working. No, I'm going to finish the cross.
I'm going to finish the job that you've set before me. I'm going to finish the race, and I'm going to keep going. And this is the idea that the mission that Jesus is laying out. And he lays it out in two different ways.
The first one is this, the pursuit of glory that he has. He says, glorify your son so that your son may glorify you. The hour of the cross is looking at this.
And from the outside, oftentimes people will say, how can you worship someone who has been defeated on a cross, who has been destroyed on a cross?
And when we look at the cross, we don't see defeat, but we see a divine design that Jesus laid out that he said, I'm going to come and I'm going to die for those that have rejected me.
I'm going to die for those so that they can one day come into my glory.
I love how Jesus says here in this prayer, I was from the beginning of the world in your glory and was glorified and one day I'm going to be like that. He is telling us, it's not just a brightness of glory.
Jade asked me this week as we're coming and I can pick on her a little bit because she's at children's church with my wife, but she said, dad, are we going to be angels one day?
I said, Jade, are you asking this because you want to have wings one day? And so we had this whole theological conversation about how we're going to be in glory and I said, it really doesn't matter about all the details per se, but it matters that we're going to stand before Jesus,
the one who came to die for us and we're going to worship him as angels can't worship him. She said, what? I said, Jesus didn't die for the angels.
The angels are going to, the Bible says, the angels are going to be in heaven and they're going to be confused at why we're worshiping Jesus because he died for us because they don't understand that concept.
Jesus came to die so that we could be glorified in him so that our life could live in a way that is so connected to him that people are going to say, why is it that you're serving this man named Jesus?
Why is it that you're living this life? And it's because Jesus came not in a way to exalt himself, but to put himself below everything. And the Bible says that he made himself a little lower than the angels
so that he can come and he could die for us so that we could live forever for him. And yet the Bible says that all authority was given to him to give eternal life. Jesus didn't come to dominate.
He didn't come to grab us and to shake us and say, accept what I have for you.
No, he said, I'm coming to the hell on a cross and if you want this eternal life, you have this opportunity to trust in me.
You have this opportunity to say, I'm going to take a step forward and trust in the one who has given his life for me. If you're a parent, you know you can make your kids do things. They may do it grumbling, they may do it complaining,
they may do it slamming doors and slamming drawers and getting mad and getting upset, but you forced them to do it and now they've done it.
And you know there's a completely different thing when you ask your kid to do something and they just freely, some of you may have never experienced this, freely just do it on their own volition.
Yes, mother, I would love to do that for you. And you know as a parent, you're like, okay, is my child possessed? What happened? Who took over you?
What are you wanting for your birthday right now? Why are you trying to butter me up? Right? This is the idea that the parents have and this is what Jesus said. I'm not coming to try to beat salvation into you.
I'm coming to give you salvation to say, this is what you have to offer, but I'm not going to force feed it to you. You have a choice and I'm going to give you life. I'm going to give you the opportunity to have eternal life.
D.A. Carson said it like this, the cross is simultaneously the moment of deepest humiliation and yet the highest of glorification.
The cross, as you study this, if you've ever studied the crucifixion, the cross is the most humiliating way to die. You're stripped completely naked. You're nailed to a cross. I read this week and was studying this as we're going through the Easter resurrection.
Oftentimes we see the crucifixion as both feet over top of each other and one spike going through their feet.
They've actually discovered a crucified person that they actually would have taken their feet and actually would have put them on both sides of the cross like this and would have drove a spike in their heel across on each side of it.
And so they would have been pushing up on the side of the cross with their arms out an excruciating amount of pain to go through that there's a little small, if you look at the heel bone, there's a
little small opening where they would have actually drove that spike through the side of their ankle. And that's how they would have been held on the cross, naked and mocked. And he said, this was the most horrible way of humiliation. But yet, God looked down from heaven and said, you trust in this
humiliating moment and you get the highest level of glorification.
You get brought above everything else because you are going to be one and identified with the son who came to die for you and you get to live forever for him.
It's like, oftentimes you'll see a scene in the movie where a soldier will step on a landmine and someone else will push that person out of the way and land on top of that landmine and all of a
sudden the mine will go off and that one person gave his life and sacrificed so that everyone else could have their freedom still intact.
And this is what Jesus did. He saw us living in our sin and he came and he removed us from that sin and he fell on that sin for us so that he could bear the punishment for us.
He laid down that sacrifice so that he could be seen as a sacrifice so that he could be delivered as a sacrifice so that he could give the ultimate glorification back to God.
And oftentimes we see that and we go, yeah, but is it really that much of a sacrifice? We begin to question, did Jesus really love me? Does he really care about me? And Jesus says it like this, no man loves his neighbor unless he lays down his life for him.
Someone who's a stranger, you're not going to lay your life down for. Now a blood relative, a family member, yeah, you're going to take that bullet for them.
But a stranger, someone you don't know or better yet, someone who's betrayed you,
Judas, who just moments early left the room and is now bringing a quadrant of soldiers into the garden that are about to betray Jesus with a kiss and he said, I'm laying my life down for him. I'm laying my life down for those that mock and abuse me.
That's who I am coming for, ultimately for this, to give the glory back to God. Do we seek God's glory? Or are we seeking our own recognition?
Are we looking at how our own name can be in light and how much we can be identified with? Are we saying, God, I just want to put my name down and I want to serve you.
I want to put my yes on the table and I want to allow you to be glorified in everything that I do.
Eternal Life and Grace
But not only do we see the pursuit of glory, but we see the provision of grace. As Jesus is laying out to his disciples, I'm praying for our mission. He says that this is eternal life that you may know him. This grace that we have is eternal life.
Now, when we hear eternal life, oftentimes we think of this as a duration. Jade and Mordy and not really Hudson yet, but they'll ask me, how long is eternity? Right? We have finite minds. You can't really explain eternal to them.
And so this is how I look at them and I say, it's not about how long it's going to be. And I tell them this, I said, it's about starting it right now.
Let's not think about when I get to heaven and what I'm going to do when I get to heaven, but what can I do while I'm here on earth?
When can I start my eternal life right now? What can I do right now for God's glory and for his glory, not for my glory? And how can I start this relationship that God has invited me into? The Bible says to know is this intimate experience that's ongoing.
It's actually a marriage term to know one another and Jesus is using the same term in an idea of our relationship with him and he's saying, you have this grace, I'm giving it to you and now I'm not
just expecting you to live your life but I'm wanting you to have a life that is now made with purpose. And Jesus says that I have finished the work on the cross.
He said, I have submitted to the cross and I have finished it so that you could have this eternal life, so that you can have this grace.
Matthew Henry, a famous commentator said this, eternal life begins now, not later, and is a present possession. It's something that we can hold on to right now, right?
If you're like me, you've got some money in the stock market and hopefully you don't look at it because they go up and down every single day and you can go crazy watching the stock market but it's a
possession that you have that you really can't really obtain until a certain point in life. It's out there in the future.
Jesus says that eternal life is not way out there in the future, it's right now.
It's a possession that you have that you can grab, that you can take a hold of, that you can begin living right now and you don't have to wait for some magical experience that you're going to have in
heaven where you get to stand before Jesus but you have this with him right now.
It's anchored in the sun through his sacrifice and yet we get to have this as we live for him.
A couple years ago my dad adopted some children and this picture of adoption is one of these pictures that I look at and as I'm on the board of directors for the Baptist State Convention I'm part of the
Baptist Children's Home and I get to hear reports and I get to hear things that people and kids and this many kids have been adopted and fostered through their organization and when our new guy David Melber comes in
he says this, he says, adoption is not just about finding a home for a kid but it's about this child receiving a new family, a new relationship,
a new love that they've never experienced before. Some of them they're experiencing a meal at a table that they've never experienced
and they get to have a relationship with a family that you and I know but yet they experience for the first time and he says, this is our idea of what Jesus gives us.
We get to sit at the table with Jesus. We get to experience a meal with him. We get to enjoy his goodness and his glory and his grace that he has given us because he is the one who has adopted us into his family. But the question
that I want to ask you is this, do you know about God or do you truly know him?
Do you truly know who he is and what he's done and how he has given his life for you so that you could experience that goodness that he's given us? And so we see the prayer for his mission and that's vital.
He spends five verses here but then the majority of this passage he spends on the prayer for his disciples.
Prayer for the Disciples
Next week we'll look at the prayer for the church but this week we're going to look at the prayer for his disciples. Verses six through nine he begins to shift his message from the mission of himself to the mission of the men that have been surrounded by him.
Think about this, these are young men. According to most scholars there's only one man that would have been old enough to pay the temple tax and so all the rest would have been teenagers okay so this is the greatest youth pastor that ever lived, Jesus,
who's taking a bunch of teenagers around in the wilderness and around walking all the time and he says hey I'm going to give you an opportunity to follow me.
You've left your mission, you've left everything that you had and you're going to follow this new mission and now I'm going to pray for you because I'm about to leave.
Hold on, wait, I'm 16 years old, Jesus, and you're leaving me?
Like I just left my father's business of making money at the cabinet shop and I just left my father's business and making money fishing and you told me that you were going to make me fishers of men and
you told me that you were going to usher in the kingdom and now you're leaving? Why are you leaving, Jesus?
What's going on? And I can imagine this is what they're thinking. Well, someone else has abandoned us.
Someone else gave us good news and he came out and gave us the gospel and now we're going to follow him but all of a sudden now he's leaving and we don't have anything and we're going to be abandoned and what are we going to do?
But Jesus in this moment, in this prayer for his disciples,
lays out about five different things. There's probably a couple more that I could have gave but for sake of time, I'm going to quickly go through this. He gives some prayer
concerns for them and he says, I'm going to pray for you specifically. This is what he does. He says, I'm going to pray for their revelation to be received. Verse 6, it says this, they have kept your word. Jesus revealed the Father to them.
He says that I have made known every way before them so that they would know who you are and they would receive understanding in everything so they would receive what is given. Faith is this. Faith is beginning with receiving the truth that God has given us. It's not mastering it.
Right? There's master plumbers, there's master electricians, my dad is a master electrician, my father-in-law is a master plumber. If I need a plumbing problem done,
instead of me spending four or five hours trying to figure it out with just putting an ice maker downstairs,
instead of me looking at it and saying, how can I figure this out and watch these seven videos and try to figure all this out, I'm just going to call my father-in-law and I'm going to say, hey, Glenn, I got a problem.
Can you come fix it? And this is what he said. I did this.
I called him and he said, send me a picture of the problem we were having and I'll tell you how to fix it. So I sent him a picture and like three seconds later, he's like, you need to do this, this, and this. You need me to come help you?
I can do it in about two minutes. Yes, please. Come help me because it's going to take me three hours to do this.
And so when we begin to go through this, Jesus is saying, I'm not telling you have faith and then master it. He's saying, have faith, receive it, and begin to walk through this. God's going to give us some things and we're going to begin understanding and I could have said, Glenn,
listen, I know you got it. Just tell me how to do it and I'll figure it out myself, Glenn. That would have been stupid for me to do that.
And I was wiser and I said, yes, come and hang out with me. And he went and bought me lunch that day. It was great. We hung out.
I don't get to spend a lot of time on my father-in-law anyways. And so he came and I, by faith,
received the wisdom that he had. Not because I had mastered it. I am not a master plumber.
Please do not call me if you have master plumbing problems. Okay? I can somehow figure them out. I can turn water off and turn water on. And that's about the extent of my plumbing experience. And so I haven't mastered it, but I know my way around it.
And Jesus is saying, just because you're a disciple doesn't mean you have to master this thing of faith. He's saying, just come and trust the one who has already mastered it, who has taken over everything and trust in him. He says their revelation would be received.
But number two, he says their relationship is requested. Look at what he says here in verses nine through 11. Holy Father, protect them.
Jesus is looking at his disciples with them here, within earshot of them being able to hear what he's saying. And he says, Father, protect them. I'm leaving. They're nervous.
They're anxious. They think I'm abandoning them. But I'm actually praying for you to protect them. He says, Lord, they're your possession.
They were yours before they were mine. You gave them to me and I am praying for them.
This is a personal prayer. I almost imagine that he began to call out their names. Why do I imagine that? Because he calls out the name of Judas. You have protected them except the one that forsook me,
the one that became the one of destruction. So I believe that Jesus began praying specifically by name. Father, be with Peter.
He's going to go through some hard times. He's going to be the leader of this church. He's going to be the one that's going to take persecution. But Lord, be with him. Be with John.
Be with the one that's so tenderhearted that he's going to get taken advantage of and he's going to love people.
Pray for James, Lord. Sometimes he's crazy, right? These are the sons of thunder. One's loving and one's all action, right? He's beginning to pray for each and every one of these disciples personally, not just in a generic way. He begins to say, they're yours, Father. They're your protected vessels.
They belong to you. You protect them. He says, now give them unity and give them their identity that they need because they have been positioned in you. The unity of Jesus, this is what one commentator said, prays for it's theological before it's practical and it flows from a shared truth.
Jesus is saying, listen, I'm praying for them because they're going to theologically need you, Jesus, because when the practicality of ministry comes, they've got to be grounded in who you are. Oftentimes, we go through this and we see other believers as this competition and Jesus says, I had died for the entire church.
Work together in unity because this is who you're going to believe in. This is who you're going to work in and we must be, as I love our Baptist home mission, I love our statement for the Baptist convention. It says this, we are on mission together.
We are on mission together so that we can serve the one who has died for us so that we can reach more together than we can separate.
So he prays for their revelation, he prays for their relationship, but then, and I'm going to briefly mention on the joy that he prays for them. Verses 12 and 13,
he again, in the moment, I want you to understand, in Jesus, in the moment when he is going to the cross, he is going to the place where he is going to suffer and he's going to die for us, he has the disciples on his mind again and
he prays for their joy. Look at this, so that they may have my joy completed in them. My joy, the joy of Jesus.
The Bible says in Hebrews that the joy that was set before him, he endured the cross and suffered our payment so that we could have a relationship with him.
This is the joy that was set before Jesus and now he is saying this joy that I have, I want it to be with my disciples. Now understand, this joy is not tied to comfort. He's not saying give them all the necessities that they need, make them comfortable,
make them happy, healthy, wealthy, and wise and that's how they're going to have their joy. Look at what their joy is tied to. It's tied to Christ so that they may have my joy complete in them.
My joy, not James Seyfried, but Jesus Christ, his joy in us because his joy hours from this moment is going to the cross and he says that is the joy that is set before me and church, we can
have this same joy if we align our lives with the alignment of Jesus' life as he is looking at the cross, he is looking at this suffering and he says this is the joy that's in front of me. We don't do this. We don't seek
destruction and suffering and sorrow and say that's joy right there. Yep, that's what I wrote down. On my five-year plan, suffering.
On my five-year plan, debt. On my five-year plan, everything that can go wrong in life, that's my joy. We don't do that and yet Jesus looks at what is in front of him, the cross, suffering, humiliation and says, that's my joy. I don't run. I'm not a runner.
The Bible says that unless you're chased, you shouldn't run and so I try to be biblical. I don't get chased often so I don't run.
I walk on the treadmill every once in a while but a runner, you can see this if you ever watch Olympics and you ever watch sports, the runner, he's agonizing and he's running his race and as he gets
to the end of the race and he finishes his race, he's went through all the agony, he's went through all the exhaustion, he's went through all the leg cramps and yet he finishes his mission and he has joy.
He stands up on that pedestal and through all the suffering, through all the pain, he stands up and he receives his prize and with joy he stands there. He's still in pain, he's still suffering, he's still having to go through everything that he went through and yet he has now completed his mission.
Is our joy dependent on the circumstances that we're around
or is our joy dependent on our comfort that we have in God? God says, I'm going to give you these things in life, good, bad, ugly, indifferent. You have all these things and are we saying, God, thank you. Thank you for the suffering that you've given me.
Thank you for the pain that you've given me and allowing me to love you and allowing me to live for you or are we saying, God, I want all these things to happen in the right way and then I'll be joyful. God says that joy is dependent on him, not on our circumstances.
So he requests this joy and then in verses 14 and 16, again, the disciples are listening. It says that he stood there and he is praying so that they can hear them. He says, there is going to be opposition that happens in this world. The opposition that is expected to happen.
We preached a whole message at Easter on the world hating us and he says it again here. The world has hated them. If you read through this prayer and you really study it out and you study John 17, it's really a summary of John 13, 14, 15, and 16.
Okay? And so it's everything that Jesus has been telling them on this journey and now he is summarizing it into one prayer. It's almost like if you've ever had a seventh grade little boy that I have, they forget things.
Have you all ever had a seventh grade little boy that forgets things? Yeah, one of us. Me and Mickey. We're the only ones that have seventh grade little boys that forget things. Right?
Jesus is walking around with these teenagers and he's like, hey, the world hates you. Hey, you're going to have joy. Hey, I'm going to go to the cross. And they're like, huh?
That's a pretty light up there, Jesus. Jesus is like, come on, you knuckleheads. Listen to me.
And so now he gets to the garden and he's like, I know you haven't heard me so let me give you everything that I said in one chapter in Cliff Notes because you're going to go through opposition.
The world hates you because you're not part of this. You don't belong to the world. You belong to Christ. And because you belong to Christ, there is a distinction between you and the world.
Because there's a distinction between you, the world's not in you and you're not in the world. And my wife, she's a science teacher and she tells it to me like this because I don't know science. She says, James, water and oil don't mix.
You can put it in a bottle and you can shake it up as much as you want but once you set it down, the water's going to go to the top
or the water's going to the bottom, oil's going to go to the top. However it separates, water goes to the top. See, she should be in here telling you this, right? And so they don't mix. They're in the same container
but they don't mix. And she's telling me this, I'm like, yeah, this is the world. This is what we live in. We're in the world. The world's part of where we're at
but we shouldn't mix in the world. We should be so close to Jesus that the world says, why are you not doing the things we're doing? Why are you not talking the way we're talking? Why are you not acting the way we're acting? Because I have a different purpose in life.
My purpose in life is Jesus. And the question we have to ask ourself is, in the world that hates us, that's going to persecute us, is there a difference between us and the world? Or are we blending in so much that the world doesn't see a difference between the church and the world? There's a difference between
making the church approachable and making the church wanting people to come in.
I am all for it. I will give every bit of clothing that I have to have someone come through these doors. And I will beg people to come into this church. But there is a difference between conforming to the world and transforming who we are to Jesus.
Jesus says, or Paul says in Romans, be of this world but not like the world. Be in this world but not like the world as we go through our life.
And oftentimes, I believe that we blend in too well that the world doesn't even recognize that we're different than they are. The world should see that there is a difference between you and us.
And there's a difference between the church and who they are that we believe different, that we act different because we are created with a purpose for God's glory, not our own glory. And then the very last thing he does in verses 17 through 19,
Sanctification Through Truth
as he's looking at his disciples, and as he's praying to Jesus, he says, I am praying for their sanctification. He says, sanctify them by the truth. What is truth? Your word is truth. He requests their sanctification.
He declares who truth is and what truth is and how we should be our life so founded on the word of God that no matter what comes, no matter the decisions that we make in life, they're not going to distract us because we're so firm in who Jesus is in scripture.
It's not some mystic book, but it's a Bible that is applicable for every single day of our life.
And it begins to transform us into this moment where our life begins to look so much like Christ that we are beginning to live this relationship with him here on this earth so that the world, as we step
into glory, it's just another day in our life where we get to be closer to him. And Jesus doesn't look at us and say, as he's praying for his disciples, he doesn't say, Lord, remove them from this mission. Take them away from the hurt.
Take them away from the pain and just bring them home to me. What does he say?
He says, allow them to be sanctified in me so that they can be in this world so that they can reach this world.
And he's challenging each and every one of us in here today to be so in touch with Jesus that we are so positionally with him that we're set apart that we are now progressively becoming more and more like Jesus.
I said this a couple of months ago, but the longer I'm around people and the longer I see older couples, they begin to look like each other.
Like you see their wedding picture 40 or 50 years ago, they look completely different. You see them now, they begin to look like each other. Like they start having the same facial features.
They begin mimicking each other because they are progressively growing more and more like each other. I don't know how our body does it, but it does. And you begin to see this and this is what Jesus is saying. The closer we get to him,
the closer we are with him, the longer we're with him, we should be looking like him and be more like him in our life. He is telling us and he is commanding us that the sanctification
is greeting us with this holiness of who he is and the mission that he has called us to do.
Not to separate the two, but to bring them together and say, God, I want to do the mission of what you've called me to do and I want to be closer to you so that I look more like
you every single day of my life. As we begin to go through our life, as Terry comes to close us down, I want us to understand what this looks like and how this can be applied in our life practically. If you want to look more like Jesus, it's not an easy, fun process.
That's why Jesus lays this out. The world hates you. It's going to be difficult.
And the psalmist says it like this. He says that when you take iron and you sharpen that iron, there's a lot of friction. There's a lot of sparks. There's a lot of pain that it goes involved to creating a sharp blade.
Most of us in here carry pocket knives with us as we're, you guys are farmers and you just, that's just way of life. You have a pocket knife with you and a good person with a pocket knife doesn't carry around a dull pocket knife.
They carry around a sharp pocket knife and they are tedious about taking it to the grinding wheel and they begin sharpening that blade so that it's sharper and sharper and sharper so that if I took a pocket knife
and I laid it up here on this piece of paper, it would just cut it like a piece of butter.
And this is the idea that Jesus is saying, if you want to be more like me, the friction is going to have to be required.
You're going to have to go through the pain. You're going to have to go through the heartaches. You're going to have to go through the difficulty of a bladesman, a blacksmith, creating a sharp blade on a piece of iron.
And if you're going to be sharp for me, there are times where you're going to have to begin to allow me to refine you.
As someone who needs to be taking out the impurities of your life, it is a painful process.
And he said, I'm wanting to do that. I want to sanctify you so that when the world comes, you will be able to withstand the pressure of the world.
Jesus, today, as we look at this, he didn't just die for us. He prayed for us as well.
As we look at next week, as he specifically looks at the church, for all believers, in these last couple of verses, he begins to pray for each and every one of us. And right before the cross,
right before he goes to the cross, notice, he doesn't dwell on a way of escape.
One other passage where Jesus is praying in the garden, he says, if it be your will, let this cup pass from me. And yet he moves on and says, this is God's will, I'm going to do it.
He wasn't trying to find a way to get away from this. He was trying to find a way for him to endure his humanity as he walks through this crucifixion that he's about to go through.
The questions we have to ask ourselves is, are you living praying for the glory that Jesus prayed for? He prayed that the glory of God would be revealed through his life.
Are we walking in the truth that he has provided and are we engaged in the mission that he has called us to be in?
Each and every person in here, if you're a believer, you're part of the body of Christ and the body, each part of the body has a function. And are we doing the function of what Christ has called us to do as we live our life on his mission for him?
Maybe you're here today and you don't know Jesus.
Closing Prayer and Reflection
You don't know the glory that he gave us. Maybe today would be the day where you come and trust in him. Let us pray. Father, we love you. We thank you for what you've done. I am overwhelmed that you spent this chapter
and you prayed for your disciples. You prayed for yourself and then ultimately you prayed for us and you spent time praying for us as believers.
Lord, this is an encouragement for us to know that you knew what we were going to go through and yet you are actively interceding for us as the Bible says that you intercede for you and for me between us and the Father so that we can grow in our sanctification for you.
Lord, help us to grow closer to you. Help us, our church, to continue to grow and mold ourselves to be closer in who you are.
Lord, we love you and we thank you for what you've done in your name we pray. Amen.
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