SPEAKER_00: The sermon text this morning comes from John chapter 17, verses 20 to 26.
SPEAKER_00: We have a lot of new pew Bibles.
SPEAKER_00: And if you'd like to follow along there, it's on page 849 or follow in your bulletin.
SPEAKER_00: Before I read the text, I want to say welcome back, Alejandro Luccini, who played with us for years, our percussionist in worship for many years, who now lives in Florida.
SPEAKER_00: And Alejandro, what a joy to worship with you this morning.
SPEAKER_00: Welcome back on your weekend back to DC.
SPEAKER_00: We also want to just comment how the Lord is at work in people's hearts.
SPEAKER_00: Through the summer months, a lot of things take a break during the summer, well-needed break from a very busy year.
SPEAKER_00: But this past Wednesday night, I understand that about 45 women met together to study the Bible, study the book of Ruth, and what an encouragement that was.
SPEAKER_00: Yesterday, about 45, 50 men met for lunch and to hear some really powerful testimonies of the gospel in their lives, and it's just an encouragement to see how God is working, bringing new people every Sunday to this church, and we're thankful.
SPEAKER_00: We're concluding a three-week series this morning on Jesus' high priestly prayer found in John 17.
SPEAKER_00: If you've missed it, I encourage you to go back and listen because it is a whole.
SPEAKER_00: It's one prayer.
SPEAKER_00: We're covering in three weeks, but we look at the last part where Jesus prays specifically for you.
SPEAKER_00: For us.
SPEAKER_00: Remember the first petition was he prayed for himself.
SPEAKER_00: The second petition he prayed specifically for his disciples, knowing what they were about to face.
SPEAKER_00: And now he prays for all of his people.
SPEAKER_00: Hear the word of God.
SPEAKER_00: I do not ask for these only, meaning his disciples, but also for those who will believe in me through their word, that they may all be one just as you, Father, are in me, and I in you, that they also may be in us, so that the world may believe that you have sent me.
SPEAKER_00: The glory that you have given me, I have given to them, that they may be one, even as we are one.
SPEAKER_00: I in them and you in me, that they may become perfectly one, so that the world may know that you sent me and loved them even as you loved me.
SPEAKER_00: Father, I desire that they also, whom you have given me, may be with me where I am, to see my glory that you have given me, because you have loved me before the foundation of the world.
SPEAKER_00: O righteous Father, even though the world does not know you, I know you, and these know that you have sent me.
SPEAKER_00: I made known to them your name, and I will continue to make it known, that the love with which you have loved me may be in them, and I in them.
SPEAKER_00: This is the reading of God's holy, infallible, and errant word.
SPEAKER_00: May the Spirit instruct us and teach us this morning.
SPEAKER_00: Please join me in prayer.
SPEAKER_00: Father, thank you for your son's prayer.
SPEAKER_00: Thank you for listening to that prayer that night.
SPEAKER_00: When your son prayed, you were listening intently, and you answered his prayers.
SPEAKER_00: May we understand that in a new way even today.
SPEAKER_00: How his prayer changes everything, even change the things in us that you would this morning.
SPEAKER_00: We pray by your spirit.
SPEAKER_00: Amen.
SPEAKER_00: This high priestly prayer, Jesus, our high priest, the fulfillment of all the prophecies of the Old Testament, all the high priests that went before him.
SPEAKER_00: The high priest in the Old Testament that bore the twelve tribes on his chest, the people of God close to the heart of God, we find fulfilled ultimately in Jesus, our high priest.
SPEAKER_00: John Knox, noted as the father of Presbyterianism.
SPEAKER_00: John Knox in Scotland, toward the end of his life, in his final weeks, asked that this prayer be read to him every day.
SPEAKER_00: I think I understand why.
SPEAKER_00: I ask, Jesus said, for those who will believe in me, one day, that's us.
SPEAKER_00: Through their word, the word and the teaching of the apostles, the inscripturation of God's word.
SPEAKER_00: We believe because we have read, we have heard.
SPEAKER_00: The Holy Spirit has given us new hearts, soft hearts, not hard hearts, so that we can actually hear and obey and respond.
SPEAKER_00: This morning we're going to look at the basis for this prayer, this section.
SPEAKER_00: We're going to look at the marks of this prayer, and finally the purpose and the results of this prayer.
SPEAKER_00: The basis of this prayer that Jesus prayed, there is some repetition.
SPEAKER_00: Repetition is a good thing, oftentimes, because we don't catch things the first time, do we?
SPEAKER_00: There's a lot that just goes right over our heads reading the Bible.
SPEAKER_00: There's repetition.
SPEAKER_00: Once again, Jesus in his prayer gives thanks to God the Father for the given ones.
SPEAKER_00: And we know who that is now, right?
SPEAKER_00: Who are the given ones?
SPEAKER_00: You.
SPEAKER_00: Every follower of Christ, every Christian, we first belong to God the Father.
SPEAKER_00: And as a result of the work of Jesus Christ, our Redeemer, the Father gave us to his Son.
SPEAKER_00: Don't ever get over that.
SPEAKER_00: Amazing grace.
SPEAKER_00: Given to the Son by the Father.
SPEAKER_00: Every Christian is united not only to Christ, but to every other Christian.
SPEAKER_00: That's really a bit of the focus this morning.
SPEAKER_00: You were not only given to Jesus, you were given to the people next to you in this room, the people that are in the body of Christ.
SPEAKER_00: I think a lot of Christians miss this today.
SPEAKER_00: I think a lot of Christians never even think about this.
SPEAKER_00: We have unfortunately devolved into a very individualistic church.
SPEAKER_00: Where it's so easy for the people of God to see themselves in silos, Christian silos.
SPEAKER_00: It's just me and God.
SPEAKER_00: No, it's not.
SPEAKER_00: If we didn't believe it before, certainly this passage teaches us.
SPEAKER_00: You are given to each other as well.
SPEAKER_00: Jesus is the, Jesus, excuse me, just as the Father and the Son live together in perfect harmony, so every believer is in union with them and dwelt by the same Spirit, the Holy Spirit, and this is how we understand our oneness in Jesus Christ.
SPEAKER_00: Augustine the great saint once said of his friend Olypius, brother, we were washed in the same blood.
SPEAKER_00: That's true.
SPEAKER_00: If you're a Christian, if you're a follower of Jesus Christ, you were washed in the same blood as the person you don't like.
SPEAKER_00: As the person that you're really struggling to forgive.
SPEAKER_00: The person you've got grudges with.
SPEAKER_00: The person you'd rather not be in your life.
SPEAKER_00: If they're a Christian, we're washed in the same blood.
SPEAKER_00: That's what he's getting at here.
SPEAKER_00: The basis of his prayer is our union with Christ and our communion with our brothers and sisters in Christ.
SPEAKER_00: William Hendrickson, the commentator, put it like this.
SPEAKER_00: In this prayer, Jesus is scanning the centuries ahead.
SPEAKER_00: He's pressing to his loving heart all of his true followers as if they had already been saved that night.
SPEAKER_00: Isn't that tremendous?
SPEAKER_00: Was he thinking of you that night?
SPEAKER_00: Yes.
SPEAKER_00: Incredible.
SPEAKER_00: Hours later, we don't know how many hours later, not many, he's going to be praying in the garden.
SPEAKER_00: And we're going to get to that in another moment or two.
SPEAKER_00: Verse 21, may they all be one, just as you, Father, are in me and I am in you, that they also may be in us.
SPEAKER_00: Our spiritual union with the Godhead is the very foundation of our oneness with the brothers and sisters in Christ.
SPEAKER_00: Let me say that again.
SPEAKER_00: Our spiritual union with the Godhead is the very foundation of our relationship, our oneness with all other Christians.
SPEAKER_00: Verse 23, Jesus says something amazing, mind-blowing.
SPEAKER_00: You have loved them even as you loved me before the foundation of the world.
SPEAKER_00: Just as the Greek word means, just as.
SPEAKER_00: Now, if you're paying attention, this is the third week in a row that Jesus is plumbing deeply into the love that He has for you.
SPEAKER_00: This is the repetition.
SPEAKER_00: You have loved them, Father, just as you have loved me.
SPEAKER_00: Do you believe that?
SPEAKER_00: I don't know.
SPEAKER_00: Only the Holy Spirit can convince you of that.
SPEAKER_00: You will never convince yourself of this.
SPEAKER_00: You will never convince anyone else of this.
SPEAKER_00: And some of us know how hard we've tried.
SPEAKER_00: You can't do it.
SPEAKER_00: Only the Holy Spirit can convince you that the Father loves you as much as he loves his own son.
SPEAKER_00: God loves his sons and his daughters to the same degree, in the same way that he loves his only son, Jesus Christ.
SPEAKER_00: And to that all we can say is, thank you.
SPEAKER_00: All glory to God.
SPEAKER_00: And the prayer of confession that we prayed earlier this morning is an attempt to get to this and to understand when we don't feel like we can go back to our high priest when we see our sin.
SPEAKER_00: When we see our sin, and it just convicts us, and we're we're we're just down in the dust.
SPEAKER_00: This is when you need a high priest that you believe is interceding for you.
SPEAKER_00: And the high priest says to the father, Father, I know, I know they sin greatly.
SPEAKER_00: I know they fail us miserably sometimes.
SPEAKER_00: But Father, remember, remember, this is why I went to the cross.
SPEAKER_00: That they might be forgiven, that they might be welcomed, that we will rejoice in them, have our joy.
SPEAKER_00: You know, maybe you don't, that when you're at your worst, you need God's love the most.
SPEAKER_00: When you're at your worst, when you're surprised at what you did, you're surprised at what you thought, that's when you need the love of God the most.
SPEAKER_00: That's the gospel.
SPEAKER_00: That's what Jesus is praying.
SPEAKER_00: Jesus wants his people because he loves his people and he wants them to be with him.
SPEAKER_00: Look, we need like six hours to unpack this.
SPEAKER_00: But we're not going in.
SPEAKER_00: But take it in.
SPEAKER_00: Father, I desire that my people may be with me where I am.
SPEAKER_00: And you say, well, wait a minute, he was on earth, he was in the upper room.
SPEAKER_00: He's from his perspective, he sees that he's already in heaven.
SPEAKER_00: It's that close.
SPEAKER_00: He so longs to return to be with his father, he can taste it, even though he has to go through an excruciating death.
SPEAKER_00: He says, Father, I can't wait to get back home.
SPEAKER_00: This is Tom's paraphrase.
SPEAKER_00: Father, I cannot wait to get back home.
SPEAKER_00: And the other thing I can't hardly wait for is to get all of my brothers and sisters home with me.
SPEAKER_00: That word is the Greek word I desire that they also may be with me where I am.
SPEAKER_00: Oh, by the way, finish the sentence.
SPEAKER_00: Why?
SPEAKER_00: To see my glory.
SPEAKER_00: He wants you to join him in heaven so that you may see his unvarnished, unhidden glory.
SPEAKER_00: Amazing.
SPEAKER_00: By the way, that's the same Greek word he used again just a few hours later in the Garden of Gethsemane.
SPEAKER_00: When he said, Not what as I desire, not as I will.
SPEAKER_00: But what did he say?
SPEAKER_00: Father, as you will.
SPEAKER_00: Oh my goodness.
SPEAKER_00: Because he could say, Father, not my will, but your will be done, he could later say, Father, I my desire is to have all my family together.
SPEAKER_00: Parents, grandparents.
SPEAKER_00: Something special when you have all your kids home after they've gone.
SPEAKER_00: To have all your grown kids and your grandkids come back home, that's pretty special.
SPEAKER_00: Sometimes you just feel like it's not it's not really done until they're all back.
SPEAKER_00: That's a little bit like I think what Jesus was thinking.
SPEAKER_00: So that they can see my glory, they can see the power of the cross in full display.
SPEAKER_00: I've worshiped well this morning.
SPEAKER_00: I appreciate the music that has led us to the cross, to the throne, the word of God, but we have not worshiped this morning like we will one day when we're home.
SPEAKER_00: When we are home, there will be no tinge of regret.
SPEAKER_00: There will not be any stained or blot on our conscience, and Jesus can't wait for that day.
SPEAKER_00: And oh, by the way, he wants you and me to be living every day today in preparation for that day.
SPEAKER_00: Do you think about this?
SPEAKER_00: I hope so.
SPEAKER_00: The disciples saw him suffer before their very eyes in just ours.
SPEAKER_00: His prayer is that they will soon see him in his full glory.
SPEAKER_00: If you see Jesus in his suffering, he wants you to see him in his full glory as well.
SPEAKER_00: I remember years ago, R.
SPEAKER_00: C.
SPEAKER_00: Sproul saying an illustration.
SPEAKER_00: How we idolize celebrities.
SPEAKER_00: Messi's back in Miami, right?
SPEAKER_00: Is he near you?
SPEAKER_00: Messi's back in Miami and everybody's going nuts.
SPEAKER_00: This king of soccer.
SPEAKER_00: And I heard that the price of tickets is like tenfold.
SPEAKER_00: Everybody just wants to see this star.
SPEAKER_00: For an hour or two.
SPEAKER_00: They'll pay a lot of money.
SPEAKER_00: Who is Messi?
SPEAKER_00: We're gonna be with the King of Kings and the Lord of Lords, and we're gonna see his glory, and we're never gonna get over it.
SPEAKER_00: It's never gonna get boring.
SPEAKER_00: It's never gonna get old.
SPEAKER_00: We will be renewed day after day after day.
SPEAKER_00: Dazzled by his glory.
SPEAKER_00: It starts now.
SPEAKER_00: It starts in this sanctuary.
SPEAKER_00: Jim Boyce told a story that's pretty good.
SPEAKER_00: If it's true that you will eventually be with Jesus if you are a Christian, then why not spend time with him now?
SPEAKER_00: This you may do through times of your own personal Bible study and prayer, yes.
SPEAKER_00: What would you think of a couple who are about to be married who don't seem to feel the need to spend time together before the marriage?
SPEAKER_00: They say, oh, we're going to be together for the rest of our lives.
SPEAKER_00: We don't need to be with each other now.
SPEAKER_00: We have other things we want to do now.
SPEAKER_00: We would think that a marriage like that can hardly be promising, and we would be right.
SPEAKER_00: For if a couple is going to spend their lives together, they would rightly want to get to know each other better and even more before the wedding.
SPEAKER_00: In the same way, we should want to get to know Jesus better now.
SPEAKER_00: If we don't want to really get to know Jesus now, if we don't want to be in his word now.
SPEAKER_00: Kind of crazy, isn't it?
SPEAKER_00: Jesus only knows, but look, people that don't want to be with them now, I'm not sure they're gonna be with them then.
SPEAKER_00: Oh, I know we're gonna get married someday.
SPEAKER_00: I know it's gonna be great in heaven, but I'm doing my thing on earth.
SPEAKER_00: Do you know him?
SPEAKER_00: That's an honest question.
SPEAKER_00: Do you want him?
SPEAKER_00: Do you make time and space to just be with him?
SPEAKER_00: Because of who he is and what he's done for you.
SPEAKER_00: Makes sense to me.
SPEAKER_00: Secondly, let's look at the marks of Jesus' people.
SPEAKER_00: The fifth petition in this prayer, he prays for unity among believers.
SPEAKER_00: Verse 21, that they may be one.
SPEAKER_00: Verse 23, that they may be brought to complete unity.
SPEAKER_00: A unity that honors the unity of the Godhead.
SPEAKER_00: Listen to what J.I.
SPEAKER_00: Packer said about this.
SPEAKER_00: It's about time for Christians who recite the Apostles' Creed and mean it to come together for fellowship and witness, regardless of their denominational identity or their personal conflicts.
SPEAKER_00: Let's put away our pettiness.
SPEAKER_00: We can be so petty.
SPEAKER_00: Well, I'm not going to talk to them.
SPEAKER_00: I'm going to ignore them.
SPEAKER_00: Really?
SPEAKER_00: Jesus died for our unity.
SPEAKER_00: How easily we can dishonor God by our grudges, our refusal to forgive, our refusal to love others.
SPEAKER_00: Jesus says, Father, may they be brought to complete unity.
SPEAKER_00: He's serious about this.
SPEAKER_00: What are we doing with it?
SPEAKER_00: Does it go in one ear and out the other ear?
SPEAKER_00: I pray not.
SPEAKER_00: In the last petition, he prays for the love among his believers.
SPEAKER_00: Verse 26 that the love.
SPEAKER_00: With which you have loved me may be in them and I in them.
SPEAKER_00: In that same upper room discourse in John 13, 34.
SPEAKER_00: If your Bibles are open, you can just turn over there.
SPEAKER_00: A new commandment I give to you that you love one another.
SPEAKER_00: Boy, this little word just gets us, doesn't it?
SPEAKER_00: Sometimes we just wish it wasn't in the Bible.
SPEAKER_00: Just as I have loved you, you also are to love one another.
SPEAKER_00: There may be no greater work of the Holy Spirit in this worship service this morning than some of us, confessing our sin.
SPEAKER_00: Confessing our sin, of our indifference, our despising other Christians, our refusing to forgive other Christians.
SPEAKER_00: This may be the very work of the Holy Spirit that He wants to do in our hearts this morning.
SPEAKER_00: It's time to just say it's okay what I'm doing.
SPEAKER_00: No, it's not okay what we're doing.
SPEAKER_00: It's not okay.
SPEAKER_00: Holy Spirit, would you make me a person that I can say to Jesus, I am looking to you to enable me to do what you just said, just as I have loved you all, you also are to love one another.
SPEAKER_00: But listen to what he says right after that.
SPEAKER_00: By this all people will know that you are my disciples if you have love for one another.
SPEAKER_00: Sorry about that.
SPEAKER_00: If you have love for one another, this prayer specifically, Jesus is not praying how you love non-Christians.
SPEAKER_00: Of course, we should love non-Christians, but in this prayer, this is all about how you and I love Christians.
SPEAKER_00: The world is watching.
SPEAKER_00: Do we just, do we behave like the world when we snub people?
SPEAKER_00: When we freeze people out?
SPEAKER_00: When we grow cold toward other Christians?
SPEAKER_00: Jesus says, I don't understand that.
SPEAKER_00: Why did I die?
SPEAKER_00: But to demonstrate the power of the cross.
SPEAKER_00: And this is one very specific way that the cross is displayed to a watching world, which brings us to our last point.
SPEAKER_00: The results, the purpose of his prayer.
SPEAKER_00: Verse 21b, so that the world may believe that you have sent me.
SPEAKER_00: This is what Francis Schaeffer called the greatest apologetic that we have, the church has to the watching world.
SPEAKER_00: Apologetics, and don't worry if you don't know what that is.
SPEAKER_00: Apologetics can be useful.
SPEAKER_00: Learning a lot of ways, reasons to defend the Christian faith in the eye of unbelief.
SPEAKER_00: Yes, it can be useful.
SPEAKER_00: But the most important, greatest apologetic that we have to the world is the way that we love other Christians.
SPEAKER_00: That's what Jesus said.
SPEAKER_00: Jesus' prayer is the reason, is the key to you and I growing in his love for one another.
SPEAKER_00: We don't have this kind of love, do we?
SPEAKER_00: When we rely on our love for him, or when we rely on our love for others, we fail miserably.
SPEAKER_00: Can I get an amen?
SPEAKER_00: Is that true?
SPEAKER_00: You know it.
SPEAKER_00: I know it.
SPEAKER_00: It's not for us.
SPEAKER_00: We're here this morning to say, Lord Jesus, I need your love in me to love you and to love my brothers and my sisters.
SPEAKER_00: And I repent today if I'm not.
SPEAKER_00: This is the purpose and the result of Jesus' prayer.
SPEAKER_00: The spirit-given unity in a church family is essential for evangelism.
SPEAKER_00: I think Sinclair Ferguson says that in the last 200 years, the church has gone in a very different direction when it comes to evangelism and witnessing.
SPEAKER_00: It's got very privatized.
SPEAKER_00: Look, it's good when you have an opportunity to share the gospel with other people who don't know the gospel.
SPEAKER_00: Personal evangelism is good.
SPEAKER_00: There's a place for it.
SPEAKER_00: But do you hear what Ferguson is saying?
SPEAKER_00: That's not the primary, not the primary mode of evangelism in the Bible.
SPEAKER_00: The primary mode of evangelism in the Bible is to invite unbelievers who don't know the good news to come and watch you and me worship.
SPEAKER_00: Confess our sins.
SPEAKER_00: I can't tell you how many people over the years have come to know Jesus through our worship.
SPEAKER_00: They've told me.
SPEAKER_00: They've told the elders.
SPEAKER_00: The Apostle Paul talks about it in 1 Corinthians chapter 14.
SPEAKER_00: He says, When the unbeliever comes into your midst and he sees you really worshiping God, will he not say in his heart, these people know God in a way that I don't know them?
SPEAKER_00: It's the way we worship, it's the way we treat each other.
SPEAKER_00: This is the primary means that God has used to call the world to himself.
SPEAKER_00: Because as Sinclair Ferguson says, the last 150 years, that kind of has gotten lost, and now it's kind of become about just personal evangelism training.
SPEAKER_00: Well, that's again, there's a place for that, but that's not the primary place in Scripture.
SPEAKER_00: Will not the secrets of our hearts be revealed when we come to God and worship?
SPEAKER_00: The person who comes into this sanctuary, he says, you know, I don't believe what you all believe.
SPEAKER_00: I don't believe what you all believe, but I'm really curious because as I watch you, the way that you sing to your God, the way that you pray to your God, the way that you treat each other.
SPEAKER_00: I cannot deny the reality of that.
SPEAKER_00: And there's something about that that is capturing my heart.
SPEAKER_00: Paul says, the secrets of their hearts will be revealed.
SPEAKER_00: The secrets of their hearts will be revealed, and they will say, Is not God among these people?
SPEAKER_00: This is what Jesus is praying right here.
SPEAKER_00: I can't tell you how many people have met with the elders over the years and profess their saving faith in Christ through the worship of God's people here.
SPEAKER_00: It's powerful.
SPEAKER_00: The purpose and the result, Jesus said, is so that the world may believe that you have sent me.
SPEAKER_00: That will get their attention.
SPEAKER_00: I want to close with a letter anonymous.
SPEAKER_00: It's called the letter to Diognes, second century A.D., where a writer describes, an unbeliever describes watching Christians.
SPEAKER_00: And this is his letter.
SPEAKER_00: Christians are not differentiated from other people by country, language, or customs.
SPEAKER_00: You see, they do not live in cities of their own or speak some strange dialect.
SPEAKER_00: They live in both Greek and foreign cities, wherever chance has put them.
SPEAKER_00: They follow local customs and clothing, food, and other aspects of life.
SPEAKER_00: But at the same time, they demonstrate to us a most unusual form of their own citizenship.
SPEAKER_00: They live in their own native lands, but as aliens.
SPEAKER_00: Every foreign country is to them as their native country, and every native land is a foreign country.
SPEAKER_00: They marry and have children just like everyone else, but they don't kill unwanted babies, which was very common in Rome.
SPEAKER_00: They offer a shared table, they don't share their bed with others.
SPEAKER_00: They're passing their days on earth, but they're citizens of heaven.
SPEAKER_00: They obey the appointed laws and go beyond the laws in their own lives.
SPEAKER_00: They love everyone, but are persecuted by all.
SPEAKER_00: They are put to death and gain life.
SPEAKER_00: They are poor and yet they are rich.
SPEAKER_00: They are dishonored and yet again they are glory through their dishonor.
SPEAKER_00: Their names are blackened and yet they are cleared.
SPEAKER_00: They are mocked and blessed in return.
SPEAKER_00: They are treated outrageously and behave respectfully to others.
SPEAKER_00: When they do good, they are punished as evildoers, and when they're punished, they rejoice as if they are blessed.
SPEAKER_00: They are attacked by others as aliens and are persecuted.
SPEAKER_00: Yet those who hate them cannot give any reason for their hostility.
SPEAKER_00: This is the working out of this prayer.
SPEAKER_00: This is the working out of Jesus' prayer.
SPEAKER_00: Oh, I am convicted how far I have to go.
SPEAKER_00: How much more I have to learn.
SPEAKER_00: What I have to repent of.
SPEAKER_00: But this is what God's called me to.
SPEAKER_00: And this is what God's called you to.
SPEAKER_00: And the Holy Spirit dwells in us so that it's possible.
SPEAKER_00: Father, I thank you.
SPEAKER_00: Thank you for the power of the gospel.
SPEAKER_00: Jesus, thank you.
SPEAKER_00: Thank you for completing your assignments that the Father gave you to do.
SPEAKER_00: Speak to each heart here this morning.
SPEAKER_00: What's in the way?
SPEAKER_00: What is in the way that we would yield, that we would surrender by the power of the Spirit.
SPEAKER_00: Oh Jesus, we love you.
SPEAKER_00: We thank you that you pray for us.
SPEAKER_00: And now we're going to live for you.
SPEAKER_00: Amen.