Dec. 24, 2017 PM Service Our High Priest Prays For Us by Pastor Josh Sheldon

The High Priestly Prayer in John 17:6-10

Let me read to you from the Lord's Prayer that we've been in for now, this being the second week in chapter 17 of John. The High Priestly Prayer of our Lord Jesus Christ. Beginning at verse 6, and I'll go through verse 10.

I have manifested your name to the people whom you gave me out of the world. Yours they were, and you gave them to me, and they have kept your word. Now they know that everything that you have given me is from you.

For I have given them the words that you gave me, and they have received them and have come to know in truth that I came from you, and they have believed that you sent me. I am praying for them. I am not praying for the world, but for those whom you have given me, for they are yours.

All mine are yours, and yours are mine, and I am glorified in them. May God bless us as we hear his word. Many, many years ago when I was working on loading docks, whether a truck came in or went out, it came in with or it was sent out with a bill of lading or a packing slip, a detailed list of all the contents that it put on there.

And once it was loaded up, the door was closed and locked and then a seal was put through the latch on the door, a plastic seal which had to be broken in order to open the door and had a unique number on it.

So the driver would come into the loading docks and he would give us the manifest telling us what's to be on the trailer and it would also be also on there would be a seal number which showed the shipping dock and what seal number they put on there so we'd know that the door had not been opened if the seal was intact.

So if it was intact, if it was not broken and the number match was on the manifest or the bill of lading, we would proceed to open the door and unload the truck. And a supervisor, which I was quite honored to become before this early part of my career came to an end, would verify that what came off the truck was, compared to the bill of lading or the packing list or whatever we had, was accurate.

That everything it said was shipped to us actually was received. If it's all in order, it'd be signed, verified receipt and all would be good and we'd go on about our business which is usually to have unloaded another truck.

Well here in this prayer Jesus does something like that. He takes possession of a cargo sent to him. And of course what was sent to him was sent to him by the Father. And in a very real way, in a sense in keeping with this illustration, Jesus is verifying acceptance by his prayer.

As I would verify that the truck was intact by checking the seal number and the seal wasn't broken when it got there we take possession of it. It was now ours. We were then responsible for it. And in this prayer Jesus does something like that.

Takes possession of what was shipped. Of course we weren't shipped. But given to him by the Father. And what does he confirm in this prayer? These few verses I read to you. But that everything is there.

Only one under his care was lost. As Judas, not by mishandling by Jesus, nor did bandits hijack the truck or steal the cargo. He was lost in accordance with the scripture. That's what verses 17 -12 tells us.

Which would tell us that the bill of lading never really had him on it. God was not caught off guard by Judas' defection. When Jesus takes receipt of what the Father gave him, he was never there. But everything is supposed to be there.

Down to the last piece of hair on the head of each piece of cargo. It was all there. Like I said, in keeping with this short illustration I gave, the truck backs up and it's from God. And the door is open and it had been intact the whole way and Jesus takes out what is given to him by the Father and there are no shortages.

No reason to call the shipping agent and say we're missing this or that or something's not there. I manifested your name to the people whom you gave me out of the world. Yours they were and you gave them to me.

And they've kept your word. Now they know that everything that you have given me is from you. This may sound redundant, that last verse, as though he said something like, now they know that what you gave me, you gave me.

Something like that. But that's not the case. The subject of this mutual giving and receiving between the Father and Son is what? It's the people whom you gave me. That's the cargo. That's what's in this truck that backed up to the dock here.

And Jesus opens it up and what's inside every single person. Could we say soul? Given to him by the Father. Not one is lost. Not one. I've already explained Judas. They belonged to the Father. They're given by him to his Son.

And the thing that was given, clearly enough, is people. It's people. Those whom you gave me. And who are they? Jesus is praying with the disciples, listening to every word he's saying. They, the disciples, are the immediate object of this receiving, this giving by the Father and receiving by the Son.

But it's not them alone. Who else is it? Verse 20, widens the scope beyond the 11 who were there. He says, I do not ask for these only. These disciples whom in Luke we read Jesus named apostles. I do not ask for these only but also for those who will believe in me through their word.

So they, the apostles, have kept Christ's word and after the Lord returns to his throne and sends down his Holy Spirit they will give the word they were given to others. That's what preaching is. To give the word of God to others.

Jesus gave God's word to them and they have kept it and they give that word and others will believe in me, in him, in Jesus through that word. Peter will preach in a few weeks at the Pentecost. John will stand with him before the Sanhedrin.

They will answer the charges against them by giving them the word of Christ. They will defend themselves with the gospel. Peter will preach the word of Christ at Pentecost. And men will what? Be convicted of their sin.

They'll be cut to the heart and will repent and by the work of the Holy Spirit come to faith in Christ by the giving of that word of Christ. They have kept your word. And now Jesus prays for those who will believe when they hear that word.

Pentecost some did believe by the spirits piercing their hearts. But think further and there are a couple of more factors involved there and one of the first of those factors is that Jesus prayed for them.

Jesus prayed for those who would hear that message. I do not pray for them alone but those who will believe when they hear this word. That's why they believe because Jesus prayed. Had Jesus not prayed, they'd still be lost in their sin.

And if Jesus does not pray for us, we would all still be lost in sin. Not long before this final evening the Lord said, Simon, Simon, behold Satan demanded to have you that he might sift you like wheat but I have prayed for you.

Let me change that. Let me say it again with the emphasis where it should be. But I have prayed for you that your faith may not fail. If ever we are able to do anything that is true or honorable or just or pure or lovely commendable or excellent and of course that list is from Philippians 4 8 so that's meant in the sense of gospel conduct.

If ever we are able to do any of these things, how is that? It's the same way we came to faith. Jesus prays for us. Jesus stands before the Father interceding for us even now. Hebrews 7 says praying for us.

Praying for our good works. Praying for our faithfulness. Praying for our endurance. Praying for us to persevere. Praying before all this here in this high priestly prayer. Praying that we will hear this word and believe.

And Jesus prays for all who do that. Who hear this apostolic word of the gospel of Jesus Christ and believe. And we're able to believe a whole number of factors. We know there are many of them. I narrowed down this afternoon to this one because Jesus prays for us.

You and I who believe this word of the apostles, this word they have in our Bibles, we are included in the Lord's prayer here. Do you believe the word of God spoken by Christ and then the apostles? We need to thank Almighty God if that is the case because the cause is not of our own doing but in the giving of you or me to the Son by the Father and the cargo having been duly received and the bill of lading signed, received by this prayer.

The Lord once asked which one of you if his son asks him for a bread will give him a stone or if he asks for a fish will give him a serpent? If you then who are evil know how to give good gifts to your children how much more will your Father who is in heaven give good things to those who ask him?

We can add to that prayer just a little bit and ask ourselves how much less would he give bad gifts to his only begotten Son? Who am I speaking of here? You? Me? Believers a few miles from here? Worshipping under the gospel of the same Lord?

We're the ones that God the Father gave to his Son and that Jesus in this high priestly prayer takes receipt of. Now if we look at ourselves carefully, realistically as the apostle says in Romans 12 not thinking more highly of ourselves than we ought to think but with humbleness with right thinking with some wisdom driven by the scripture if we think of ourselves rightly we look at ourselves and say well this is not an especially good gift.

Doesn't Jesus deserve something better than me? Or you? But we are the right ones. We are the ones intended by God the Father and given by him and taken receipt of by the Son. And that can only not be true if God made a mistake.

That can only not be true if God made a mistake and if anybody thinks God makes a mistake or made a mistake I will stop and you can stand right now and we can hear how God made an error. Of course it's impossible.

There is no mistake. There is no error. There is no packing list inconsistency. We can't say that maybe he erroneously put on the shipment someone who wasn't meant to be there. Or maybe when the seal was broken and the contents examined the Son miscounted.

Or adversary hijacked the truck and opened the seal, took some off or put some wrong ones on, closed it up and made a new seal. It's all exactly as God the Father intended. Each one given by him to his Son received here in this prayer.

This followed immediately after what Jesus said. Now they know that everything that you have given me is from you. And the question is how do we know that we are given to Christ by the Father? How do we know that?

The answer is in verse 8. Another truth added to our assurance that we were given by the Father to the Son is this, to know that Jesus came from the Father and that his advent was in first cause because the Father sent him.

That's one way of knowing that I belong on that truck. That I was put on that packing list. That bill of lading. That's one way of knowing. The book of life if you want to use purely biblical terms which is always a good thing to do.

How? How do we know that? Do you believe that God sent his Son? Do you believe the word that his Son gave is the word of God, the very word of God from the word of God? To know that Jesus came from the Father.

Just to know that. And of course this is wrapped up in part of his eternality as the eternal Son of God. Not a man who God put his spirit on in a special way as some believe. Not the greatest angel created sometime before his advent.

The eternal, never ending, never not was Son of God. And that God the Father sent him. And there are all kinds of heretics who believe that God sent his Son. That's not that hard to do. We're speaking of the eternal Son of God.

To this we can add with Jesus all mine are yours and yours are mine and I'm glorified in them. In other words, there's this absolute unity of nature. God and purpose and salvation between them. Between the Father and the Son.

To hold Jesus as less than God makes him an underling who was ordered to do something he might except to follow the superior's command not have done. And that would conflict mightily with chapter 1 verse 18 of this gospel.

No one has ever seen God the only God who is at the Father's side he has made him known. The only God, that's Jesus has made God, that's the Father, known. So the belief he was sent is one thing, but it can't stand alone.

God the Father sent God the Son in order that he, the only God might manifest to man, God. If you believe these things. You're part of that shipment that cargo. The many given by him the Father to the Son.

I am praying for them says he in verse 9. I am not praying for the world but for those whom you have given me for they are yours. All mine are yours and yours are mine and I'm glorified in them. The world does need to be prayed for.

They need to be prayed for to believe. But here he prays for sanctification for those who do or those who will believe. The high priestly prayer given to Aaron and his sons is something that I recite at the end of every Sunday afternoon.

And God willing in not too many more minutes I shall again. But where does it find its ultimate purpose? The Lord bless you and keep you. The Lord make his face to shine upon you. Be gracious to you. The Lord turn his countenance upon you and give you peace.

Where does it find its ultimate purpose? That's in Jesus. That's in Jesus and I would argue it's in Jesus in chapter 17 of John's Gospel. See in him all the hope and all the promise that that Aaronic blessing speaks of is fulfilled.

Only Jesus can pray as he does in the verses that we've gone through and will Lord willing continue to go through in the weeks to come. Only he can say these sorts of words. And Jesus the unique son of God is the one who brings Numbers chapter 6 that Aaronic blessing.

This is how you shall bless the people says God to the first high priest. Only he can bring them to their ultimate conclusion of what they're always meant to do, meant to evoke, and meant to be in reality to his people.

In verse 9 he says his prayer to the father is for us. But listen to what Aaron said to the people. I already quoted this once. I'll read the whole thing again. The Lord bless you and keep you. The Lord make his face to shine upon you.

Be gracious to you. The Lord lift up his countenance upon you and give you peace. And remember that God is speaking here and telling Israel's first high priest what he is to say. What I want you to say is God saying Aaron this is what I want you to say.

Here are the quotes. Read it this way. Now here's the last verse in that Aaronic blessing which on Sunday afternoons when we're done with our worship before we depart I don't read this part but I want you to hear it this afternoon just this time.

After the Aaronic blessing, those three lines I just cited so shall they put my name upon the people of Israel and I will bless them. This is what Jesus meant when he said I have manifested your name to them.

Jesus in that sense has put God's name on his people. Flip forward to Revelation sometime this evening and read about Jesus Christ giving you a new name. A name that only you and he know. He gives you a stone with a name on it.

Names are so important. And here Jesus says that he puts God's name on God's people. Something the people in ancient Israel Aaron and the high priests that followed him could only anticipate. Could only look ahead to.

This is what is meant in verse 12. While I was with them I kept them in your name which you have given me. The last words of this prayer in verse 26. Again God's name. I have made known to them your name and I will continue to make it known that the love with which you love me may be in them and I in them.

In this way this is how the son of God put the father's name on those given him by the father. And in Christ do we find the promised blessing. In Christ when we read in number 6 the Lord bless you and keep you.

We can say the Lord has blessed and the Lord has kept and the Lord will bless and the Lord will keep us. Why? Because Christ has put God the father's name on us. So shall they put my name on my son's redeemed children we could say.

Verse 2 says that the very reason we were given to the son was that he should grant us eternal life. And what is eternal life but what the Lord previously said to know you the only true God and Jesus Christ whom you have sent.

We come together in this place on Sundays and we call ourselves Christians, disciples, saints, all sorts of good titles that the scripture gives us. Let's remember that we are those one by one chosen by the father in eternity past Ephesians 1 .3 given by him to the son and Jesus there takes as high priest receipt of us not one being lost and bring upon us the finality of all the blessings of God because in him, in Jesus Christ all God's promises are yes and amen.

And how comes this final blessing of God to us the ultimate purpose of it all? This is eternal life to know you the only true God. Well Jesus will accomplish that the next day. This high priestly prayer, this whole discourse in the upper room that we have in John's gospel is of course the night before Jesus Christ's passion.

The beatings that he took, the scourging that he endured. We know how gruesome that was. His crucifixion. And while on the cross our great high priest, he making this prayer for us, he who said I will not lose a one.

How does he seal us? How does he keep us? If you're going back to my loading dock days, my days when I was doing that kind of work, it comes off the truck. Well it's just on the dock. It needs to come inside.

It needs to be put up on shelves. It needs to be organized. It needs to be sorted. It needs to be taken out of the weather. It needs to be made safe. All this looks ahead to what? The cross. The cross of Jesus.

Our brother Dale after he read the scripture and prayed for us this morning do you remember I remember something he said there and I can't quote him exactly but it had to do with every day we live in the power of the resurrection of the Lord Jesus Christ.

Every Sunday we celebrate his Advent. He came. We remember his death. He died for our sins. We remember his resurrection because God raised him for our justification. It is by the cross, to extend my illustration, that he sealed the door finally.

It is by the cross that we have this security. We have this blessing. We have all these things. These yes and amens in Jesus that are ours. How came you to this? Because Jesus prayed for you. How did you come to the Lord?

There's not a single one of us who has a testimony that doesn't somewhere include at a very high level of importance. We're all different but somewhere in there is the importance of having heard and believed what?

This word of God. This word that Jesus gave to the apostles and then he prayed for those who will hear and believe based upon the apostolic word to others. At Pentecost others believed and that same word must be what grabbed your heart or your soul.

We have it in scripture. The same Holy Spirit using the same word drives us to Christ. It is at the cross where everything was made final. The cross which we this afternoon will remember in prayer, in obedience with the Lord's command as often as you do this.

We take the bread, remember his broken body. We take the fruit of the vine, grape juice or wine and remember his blood poured out. We remember that he actually in fact really died. And that's the conclusion of this prayer.

That Jesus Christ after accepting, gladly accepting this cargo of misfits. This cargo of messed up and disobedient and wandering and just bumping into each other and shouldering each other all the place.

What a mess we must look like from heaven. Can you imagine heaven which has finally all the orderly, all things in the church are done decently and orderly and the church is a picture of what? Heaven.

And can you imagine God looking down and seeing what we do? And yet, exactly every hair on every head. Exactly what God the Father gave and God the Son received. And to show his final possession of us, the cross.

The cross which we hear this afternoon again remember. So did God make a mistake? If you believe in the Lord Jesus Christ, why is that? Because God gave you to the Son. If you believe in the Lord Jesus Christ, why is that?

Because the Son took receipt of you. And if you believe in him, the Lord Jesus Christ, why is that? Because he prayed for you. The person. The individual. And for us as a church. God willing this will strengthen us as we look ahead to the week to come.

The final week of 2017. God willing this will strengthen us as we look ahead to the year to come. And should the Lord tarry, we will need that strength day in and day out. Amen?