John 17 The High Priestly Prayer

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Our desire is to help you draw near to God by growing in faith, community, and service.

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Good morning.

Thank you, guys.

Welcome to Recast.

If you're a regular here, you recognize that I'm not Don Filsack.

Don, in fact, my name is Zach Lloyd, one of the elders here.

Don and his wife Linda and Carrie O 'Heron have taken the junior hires on a retreat up to the

northern lower peninsula called Camp Barakal.

The kids are there for the weekend and hearing good preaching and having a chance to get to know one another and establish some

relationships.

Early reports on Facebook look like things that the kids are having a good time.

They've had good winter weather.

It wouldn't be my ideal for a winter fun time, but they're having in terms of I don't like snow events.

Camp Barakal is great, but going there in the wintertime does not appeal.

But it sounds like it's going great.

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So that's it for the business.

I'm going to get to the text, and I'm excited about my opportunity today because I get to share with you God's Word, and

today what I get to share with you is clear in the text.

It really doesn't need much from me, so that's good, and it really reveals why God made us and

what our purpose is.

That's it.

That's good news.

Oftentimes people have anxieties or midlife crisis or depression.

They don't know what, are they doing what God wants them to do?

What am I even here for?

But it's clearly communicated in today's text, and I'm excited about that.

And I say clearly communicated, but I have to be honest.

I've spent some time with it, and it's clear to me now, and if I'm completely honest, a lot of times I'll wrestle with

reading through the Gospels, and if you've spent time reading any of the Gospels, you'll recognize that

Jesus is the Son of God, but he doesn't always come right out and say it.

He says it in parables, and I would just wish that.

Man, I wish he would just say, I'm the Son of God.

There's a reason behind that, but that's not the case in today's, and I'm not saying that Scripture is insufficient or anything.

I'm the problem, but that's not the case today.

So the Gospels give different accounts of Jesus' life.

The four Gospels are four different accounts of Jesus' life, and in those accounts we see several

references to Jesus praying.

I don't think anybody would argue that Jesus prays a lot.

We see him going off to pray, coming back from the wilderness, spending all night praying.

But rarely do we see in the text exactly what was he praying about.

We have the Lord's Prayer, which is extremely helpful in that he's identifying how we should be praying, but it's

not necessarily him praying.

We have the Garden of Gethsemane testimony where he's praying at the night before he's going to be crucified, asking God if there's

another way, let's do that, pass this cup before me.

But rarely do we see exactly what is he praying.

Is he praying about us?

Well, today's text helps us understand what exactly he was praying for.

I think it is, we would all agree, if we knew exactly what Jesus prayed for us, that would be helpful.

So go ahead and grab your Bibles.

If you don't have a Bible, we have Bibles in the seat backs in front of you.

And again, if you don't own a Bible, that's welcome, that's our gift to you.

We'd be delighted if you could take that home and be able to hear from God on a regular basis.

So if you turn to page 773, or John chapter 17, is the text that we're going to be reading from.

So a little bit of context before we just parachute into this passage.

Don has the opportunity, what he does, and I'm so grateful for Don, his rightfully dividing

the word week in and week out, is that he takes a book of the Bible and goes verse by verse.

So we're not getting what Don wants us to hear.

He's not just picking verses from here and there.

We get to see the full counsel of God.

So he is able to walk through a passage.

So we're just going to jump into John 17, kind of ice cold, and I want to give you a little bit of a context.

So the Gospels, the first four books of the New Testament, if you've never been in church before, are

accounts of Jesus' life, and each of these four accounts, Matthew, Mark, Luke, John, give different aspects of God's life.

They have intent behind them.

They're synoptic, the three of them are, but John stands out as sort of a mountain range in the landscape

of Scripture in that his purpose is to reveal the deity of Christ, to show that Jesus is God, and

for that reason I'm excited to share this with you, but it kind of stands out.

John takes the first two -thirds of the book displaying seven miracles of Jesus, and he

takes time to do that, but then he spends the last third of the book doing what's called the Farewell Discourse, and it's

recording what Jesus did.

This starts with the Last Supper, a week before he's going to be crucified.

It's his last instructions to his disciples.

He's no longer meeting with the Pharisees, and it's just him and the disciples in that room, and he spends, John does, a

fair amount of time in that room, and that started in chapter 13.

Then we come to John chapter 17, and that's the context that we're going to start reading here in a moment.

He's just been in that room.

They've had the meal.

He's spent time washing their feet and being an example to serve them, and now he's going to close that time with

them with a prayer.

So if you have your Bibles, John 17, we're going to read the whole text.

You want to read along with me?

Here we go.

When Jesus had spoken these words, he lifted up his eyes to heaven and said, Father, the

hour has come.

Glorify your Son, that the Son may glorify you, since you have given him authority over all

flesh to give eternal life to all whom you have given him.

And this is eternal life, that they know you, the only true God, and Jesus Christ whom you have sent.

I glorified you on earth, having accomplished the work that you gave me to do.

And now, Father, glorify me in your own presence with the glory that I had with you before the world existed.

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'm 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.

I am no longer in the world, but they are in the world.

I and I am coming to you.

Holy Father, keep them in your name, which you have given me, that they may be one, even as we are one.

While I was with them, I kept them in your name, which you have given me.

I have guarded them, and not one of them has been lost, except the son of destruction, that the scripture might be fulfilled.

But now I am coming to you, and these things I speak in the world, that they may have my joy fulfilled in

themselves.

I have given them your word, and the world has hated them, because they are not of the world, just as I am not of

the world.

I do not ask that you take them out of the world, but that you keep them from the evil one.

They are not of the world, just as I am not of the world.

Sanctify them in the truth.

Your word is truth.

As you sent me into the world, so I have sent them into the world.

And for their sake I consecrate myself, that they may also be sanctified in truth.

I do not ask for these only, 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, the glory that you have given me, and I have given to them,

that they may be one, even as we are one, 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 love

me.

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 love me before the foundation of the world.

O righteous Father, even though the world does not know you, I know you, and these know that you have sent me.

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.

Let's pray.

Father God in heaven, we thank you for your revelation of your word, and you

showing us exactly how Jesus, the Son of God, prayed to you.

God, we are grateful to hear your word, and pray that it would find our hearts, and it would cause us to rejoice in this opportunity that we

now have to praise you.

Pray that our hearts would be humbled.

God, that the words of something of my mouth, I pray that for everyone here, would be acceptable in your eyes, and the meditations of our heart, Lord,

that we would be worshiping you in spirit and in truth, through Jesus Christ.

And it's in his name that we pray.

Amen.

Certainly love those hymns, and nothing wrong with that.

I appreciate these guys being willing to serve us each week.

So we are in John's gospel, chapter 17.

We've just read what John has recorded for us, and what, in my opinion, has to be in your top three

of chapters in all of scripture.

It is so dense and encouraging.

I'm tempted to just having read it, and just spend the rest of our time praying.

This passage needs nothing from me.

I pray that I don't get in the way.

It really stands out as the peak of that mountain range of the gospels.

This is one of the high points in scripture.

And I think it's helpful to understand, when John is recording this

prayer of Jesus, he's recording it because Jesus spoke it out loud to those.

He's in the upper room with his disciples there.

It wasn't that he was quietly whispering it, and somehow the Holy Spirit revealed it to him later, what Jesus was actually praying.

Now that could have occurred, but that's likely not what did happen.

Jesus was praying it out loud for them.

He's given them their final instruction.

This is his final prayer, his send -off to them.

So that's likely how it went down.

And I think it's worthwhile noting here, as a quick side note, in support of this

entire canon of scripture being inspired by God, in that there are four accounts of Jesus' life.

So there's Matthew, Mark, Luke, and John, those first four books of the New Testament, each having its own emphasis.

And if you were like Mark and you just took 16 chapters, you had Jesus' entire ministry, his whole life, his

three years of ministry, to summarize what did you want to communicate about that.

And Mark doesn't include this prayer.

That seems strange to me, but on the other hand, it seems like it supports this is the inspired word

of God.

They had a specific purpose.

In fact, John says at the end of this gospel, he says, if I wrote down everything that Jesus did, there isn't enough

space in this world to contain the books.

So what we have here is deliberate.

Everything in here is deliberate and specifically chosen for our good, so we should be reverent and take every

word in here as having some meaning for our lives.

So I just had to draw that out a little bit in how unique that only John records this prayer and how powerful that prayer

is, but there is a specific purpose behind all of Scripture.

So certainly we get to hear Jesus praying, and we can learn a lot.

Certainly it's helpful to hear an instruction on how to do something, but to see them do it, that's what we get to see here.

And I think of specifically in prayer and how you might have had the opportunity to see...

My bad?

No need to check, I'm counting as a mic check.

We're good.

So if you get to hear somebody pray for the first time that's a new believer and how encouraging that is to hear them praying.

They don't know all the jargon, they don't know the language, and you are encouraged to hear them pray.

But at the same time you can also hear somebody that's been praying for a number of years, and you can just be praying along with them and

swept up in the Holy Spirit and praying with them, and you learn a lot about that person.

I think we get that same opportunity here when we hear Jesus praying.

So we're going to walk through the text verse by verse, sort of.

It can be broken up into three major chunks.

The first nine verses where Jesus is praying for himself in a lot of ways.

And then the next section, 9 -20, where he's praying for the believers.

Not the believers, but the disciples, those in the room.

And the last verses, 20 -26, are him praying for those that are yet to believe, so us in the

church.

And within each of those sections there's basically five themes.

And if you were noticing when you were reading it, it seemed like a lot of things were being repeated, and that's why it's a little difficult for me to walk through and not just

be repeating myself.

So I've tried to draw out these, and it might look like I'm skipping over stuff, but that's really not my intent.

And I'll just highlight a couple of the key themes just so you hear them, and maybe you can hear them again when we address them.

But in each of those three sections Jesus is praying for something, either

us or himself.

Each of those has a theme of glory.

In each of those he's addressing the Father.

And he is mentioning in each of these three sections the followers of Jesus have been given to

him from the Father.

And in each of those he talks about how Jesus has revealed the Father to us.

So we're going to walk through this now in verse 1.

And noticing his posture, if you had the text before you,.

It says,.

That is helpful for me to picture Jesus praying in that manner.

It wasn't that he was off in a corner praying with his head bowed, not that there's anything magical about our posture, but to picture him, if I was in that

room and Jesus is praying with his eyes looking at God, praying, Father, that changes my

perception of it.

And maybe it does for the same, but what you see throughout the text, he's also addressing God as Father.

So Jesus the Son, God, so I'm using these terms a little bit synonymously, but verse 2 he addresses God as

Father.

Verse 5,

That's consistent with what we see throughout the Gospels, and it provides a specific understanding of that

relationship.

There's Jesus the Son, the Son of God, and God the Father.

And that can help flavor who he is in that dynamic.

And then you see, he says,

Now, if you've read, we're not going to go this slow throughout the text, but I'll just highlight this.

It says, And if you've read the Gospels at all, you recognize that as a little bit refreshing.

There's a number of occurrences where he's saying, My hour has not yet come.

There's the account in John, just in John's account, in chapter 2, he's at the wedding feast and his

mother, Jesus' mother, is like, look, there's a problem with the wine.

Can you do something about this?

And he's like, hey, my hour has not yet come.

Or in chapter 7 of John, where his brothers are like, look, there's a big feast going on in Jerusalem.

You should go down there and you could tell everybody who you are.

And he's like, my hour has not yet come.

And then even the next chapter, chapter 8, he says, when the Pharisees are trying to arrest him, they're not able to arrest him because

his hour has not yet come.

We see that a lot.

So it's really refreshing to see.

Just like kids in the back of the van.

Are we there yet?

Are we there yet?

No, we're here.

The father, the hour has come.

So that is, it's sort of refreshing to see that.

And note that this hour has come, is not referring to a 60 minute stretch of time.

It's a, it's a, it's a theme about what's going to happen.

In fact, he knows his hour has come because he just set it in motion.

They're in this upper room.

He has his disciples there with him and he's just told Judas, the one that's going to betray him.

He tells him, go do what you're going to do and do it quickly.

So he set in motion, go betray me.

He knows it's going down.

I'm going to be crucified shortly.

So he, he has fully understand it.

And he's actually set the wheels in motion himself.

So let's look exactly what does Jesus pray for himself?

We'll get verse one and five.

And we see in both those verses, the repeated request and throughout the text, in fact, that God would glorify the son and that

the son would glorify God, the father.

So few of us would argue with that.

That sounds like a good thing.

We should all be praying that, but I don't know how many of us have a good understanding.

What is the glory of God?

And how does it, how do they exchange the glory?

How do I give you glory in, in, in vice versa?

So we'll just start with, uh, I think it's important for this text.

They kind of get some kind of understanding of what the glory of God is and how they're exchanging it.

So the commentaries and a lot of the definitions, they say the glory of God, I'll read it to you.

The God's glory is his splendor and his majesty.

I didn't find it particularly helpful.

And maybe it gives you a picture, but if we, if there's a quiz next week and you put down God's glory is his splendor and his

majesty will give you credit.

But let's just take a brief look at what scripture has to say to kind of color and give you a better feel for what God's

glory is.

And in fact, we'll start with John's account in verse one.

Oh, I mean in chapter one, a verse in verse 14, John says the word became flesh and

dwelt among us and we have seen his glory.

So this is talking about Jesus based on chapter one, verse one.

We're talking about Jesus glory as of the only son from the father, full of grace and truth.

So there we see the glory of God is revealed.

How in Jesus Christ, the son God's glory is revealed in Jesus.

Jesus is the embodiment, the incarnation of God's glory.

Now we're going to keep walking through this and maybe you can get a better feel for what we're talking about when we say God's glory.

You might remember the familiar account in Exodus chapter 33 or 24, where he's on the Mount

Sinai receiving the 10 commandments.

And he says in verses 15 through 17 of that chapter, he says, then Moses went up on the mountain and

the cloud covered the mountain.

The glory of the Lord dwelt on Mount Sinai.

And the cloud covered it six days.

And on the seventh day he called to Moses out of the midst of the cloud.

Now the appearance of the glory of the Lord was like a devouring fire on the top of

the mountain in the sight of the people of Israel.

So there we can kind of, you get a mental picture.

This is not the glory of God.

It was like this.

It was fire devouring a mountain.

And it's probably hard for any of us to imagine exactly what that is, but certainly supernatural, awe -inspiring,

something is different there.

And everyone recognized that's the glory of God.

And it was clear to everybody what that was.

And we see also a couple chapters later in Exodus chapter 33, there's this Moses leading

God's people, has a tent of meeting, and he goes out into this tent.

And whenever he does, God descends on that.

And he actually meets with the God of the universe, meets with him one -on -one.

And Moses, you've got to love this guy and how brave he is, but also I feel like I would fall on my face in front of God, and

we probably will, but he's able to just have a conversation with God and to be able to do that at some point

in eternity future is encouraging to me.

But Moses says in verse 18 of chapter 33 of Exodus, he says, please, Moses is

talking, show me your glory.

And he said, I will make my goodness pass before you and will proclaim before you my name, the Lord.

And I will be gracious to whom I will be gracious, and I will show mercy on whom I will show mercy.

But he said, you cannot see my face, for man shall not see me and live.

And the Lord said, behold, there is a place by me where you shall stand on the rock, and while my glory passes

by, I'll put you in a cleft of the rock, and I will cover you with my hand until I have passed by.

So Moses is not asking for representation of his glory or reflection.

He wants the 180 proof full throttle, the glory of God uncut.

And God says, it'll kill you.

I can't show you my glory.

So that can give us at least the weight of God's glory and what it actually is referring to.

But we also see other spots, and if you start looking for the glory of God in Scripture, you're going to be shocked.

It feels like it's on every page.

It's why God, he set this whole thing up is for his glory.

There's also another example where God uses the word glory figuratively.

In 1 Samuel chapter 4, this is the account where the ark is with the people of Israel and Philistines have

come and taken it from them.

And Eli is there and he falls over dead, he's just so overcome.

And his daughter -in -law is giving birth and she names the child Ichabod, saying the glory has departed from Israel

because the ark of God has been captured and because of her father -in -law Eli and her husband Phinehas.

So in that case you can see an example where it's used figuratively.

So there's not a spot in Scripture, and we could go on and on, but there's no spot where it says the glory of God is.

We just don't have that.

And it's a lot like trying to define beauty.

There's not words you can say, beauty, that's beautiful because.

You get what I'm saying?

I like the way C .S. Lewis puts it.

He says, nature never taught me that there exists a God of glory and of infinite majesty.

I had to learn that in other ways.

So he never learned that there was a God of glory just by looking at nature.

And he says, he goes on, but nature gave the word glory meaning for me.

So to put it another way, he's saying that while we might stand before the Grand Canyon and see the

giant splendor and the awesomeness and vastness of the Grand Canyon or look at the stars or we might hold a newborn

baby and just see how perfectly woven their fingers are and you put your hand in and they grab your finger and just how wonderful that is.

That's a reflection of God's glory.

That's not God's glory.

That's a reflection of it.

And it's not just physical things either.

It's emotion.

The good example would be like when we have, if you accepted Christ as your Savior and you are forgiven of your sins

and all of a sudden that burden is off of you and that experience and you feel like you can just flow out of the room.

That's God's glory.

That's something unique that you can only see.

This is God.

That's kind of what we're talking about.

It's His majesty and His splendor as revealed and it can be in an infinite number of ways.

Whether it's how He loves us or His justice, His truth, His mercy.

There's a lot of different ways it can show itself.

So we'll get back to the text here and it says, back to verse 1, there's a logical progression in this prayer where it

says, beginning back to verse 2 I guess, where he's requesting that God would glorify him.

In verse 2 it says, since.

So he wants God to glorify Jesus because, or since, you have given Him authority over all flesh to give

eternal life.

So we have eternal life through Jesus.

That is the reason why He's asking for glory.

We were once enemies of God and now through Jesus Christ we are redeemed and it's through that redemption that

there is glorification being exchanged between the Father and the Son.

And he continues, Jesus continues to reference His work in verses 4.

He says, I have accomplished the work that you gave me to do.

So, again, this idea of work that Jesus is doing.

He says in verse 6, I have manifested your name and in verse 7, I have given them the words that you gave me.

So Jesus is glorifying God by doing the work.

Making God's name known and giving us the word that He gave Him.

That was His fundamental mission in life, Jesus, while He was walking this planet.

These are not small things.

Verse, Jesus made God's name known.

It's not, it wasn't that He was clarifying for everybody.

You know, the name of God is not Baal, it's not Zeus, it's Jehovah, it's Yahweh.

That wasn't what He was doing.

He was revealing the character.

The idea of name is the embodiment of the character.

You have to have an intimate knowledge of somebody to say you know that person.

I made known the name of the Lord means that you know that you can run to that name and find refuge.

So when we pray something like that that we see in the psalms, the name of the Lord is a strong tower, the righteous run to it

and are safe.

It's not that we're running to a name of the Lord and just, I don't know how that works, but you can understand that

we're running to those promises.

God's name, He is perfect and His glory is, He's loving and we can run to that and that is not

changing.

And in addition, we find Jesus also was revealing God's word.

So God was giving His word to Jesus and Jesus was proclaiming it to those.

And this is the star -breathing God of the universe.

He created everything out of words.

Things of infinite size and even life of infinite complexity that we still don't have a handle on and He did it by

words.

God's word according to Hebrews 4 .12, it says, The word of God is living and active, sharper than any

two -edged sword, piercing to the division of soul and of spirit, and of joints and of marrow, and discerning the

thoughts and intentions of the heart.

And one of the most amazing things to me about scripture is that He just set all this up with something so simple as a word.

It's unique to mankind.

The animal kingdom doesn't have words and that's what God has set this whole thing up around His word.

But what's primarily important about God's word is that it's how we get faith.

Romans 10 .17 says, So faith comes by hearing, and hearing through the word of Christ.

So our faith is created in us through God's word being spoken.

You may remember when we went through Galatians 3 .2, Let me ask you only this, did you receive the Holy Spirit by

works of the law or by hearing with faith?

So Jesus' request that God would glorify Him and that He would glorify God is based on that

He had made known the character of God and given us the word of God.

Because we have the word of God, we have faith in Jesus Christ for the forgiveness of sin.

Do we have the opportunity for that faith that gives eternal life?

And we see eternal life there in verse 3.

It says, and He gives us eternal life.

And what is this eternal life?

How does He define it in verse 3?

He says that they know you, the only true God, and Jesus Christ whom you have

sent.

So eternal life is captured in the idea of knowledge.

It's a relationship.

It's not this academic, yes, I'm aware Jesus is the Son of God.

Just like the demons, they acknowledge Jesus Christ is the Son of God.

It's a relationship.

Yes, I am trusting in Him.

He died for my sins.

I can count on Him.

He is the Son of God.

I fall before Him and I trust Him with my life.

That's the knowledge that we're referring to.

That is eternal life.

And if you can imagine limiting, sometimes I picture eternal life being something different in a faraway

galaxy or anything.

But it's able to walk with God in a relationship, be able to have a conversation without this sin flesh that's always

warring for myself and the selfish nature that I have where I want something for me.

Everything just seems to be a little bit tainted if you can relate to that.

And that's what we have in eternal life is a pure relationship with God the Father.

How wonderful that will be.

So I spent a little bit of time this morning trying to define what the glory of God is and probably just confused you.

It's critical to this text but hopefully you come up with a different understanding at least.

But again, I'm not trying to get in the way.

But I figure this text gives us quite an account of the Trinity or some new aspects.

So I figure while I'm explaining glory, why not just try and explain something as simple as the Trinity as well?

So the idea that Jesus was a man is pretty well documented.

Even atheists, there's very few people that refute that there was ever a man that existed named Jesus in the first century and that he had a following.

That's not what anyone's arguing.

But that he was God, that's the stumbling block for mankind.

And we see in verse 5 something sort of unique and interesting.

Jesus says in his prayer, he's asking, And now, Father, glorify me in your own presence with the glory

that I had with you before the world existed.

And we see that again, that same reference later on that he had glory.

Now this is where it gets fun because Jesus is the Son of God and he was before anything was

created.

He was with God and he was God.

Yet something happened in that he's unchangeable, omnipresent, omnipotent.

He came, put on flesh, and he left some glory there in heaven.

So there's something that has happened there that they are distinct individuals of the personhood of

God.

And just sticking to this passage in verse 21, we see that the Father and the Son are also one.

And we see glory being exchanged back and forth between the Father and Jesus.

And also in verse 6 that the people are being exchanged.

When he says, 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.

So they're not so much one that they can't exchange things.

So there's a perfect oneness.

God is giving souls of mankind to Jesus and Jesus is also keeping them.

Their union is perfect.

This is stated again in verse 10.

All mine are yours and yours are mine.

There's no tension in this relationship.

So they're one and they're separate.

It's just a free exchange for one purpose to bring glory to God.

To reveal the infinite value of the glory of God.

So in this exchange of people in verses 6 through 8, we

see that God the Father gave them to Jesus.

And so that you're hearing correctly, this is referring to the people in verse 3 that have now had that eternal life.

If you're in that camp, you have accepted Jesus Christ as your Savior.

It's not because you decided one morning, today I'm going to believe in Jesus Christ.

No, the Father God gave you to Jesus.

And that's reason to fall on your knees and thank God it wasn't anything that you did.

It's God giving you to the Father.

So in the next section, we start to see what exactly Jesus was asking for in verse 9.

We witness Jesus praying for us.

And I say the word us, rightfully understanding that this is Jesus talking to his disciples in that room.

So for us to say, well that's about me, might be a stretch.

But if you think about it, it's not so much.

We are disciples of Jesus Christ.

We are sons of God if we're trusting in Christ.

So these instructions, these prayers for his disciples can be extrapolated to us without any

problem.

He says in verse 11, he says, Holy Father, keep them

in your name that God the Father would keep us.

And again in verse 12, the idea of being kept.

And this is repeating what Jesus told the Pharisees in John chapter 10 when they were asking, look, if you're Jesus, just tell us you're

Jesus, you're the son of God.

And he says to them, he says in verse 28, he says, I give them eternal life and they will never perish.

No one will snatch them out of my hand.

And again, Paul says in his letter to the Romans in Romans chapter 8 verses 38 and 39.

Now Romans 8 is another one.

If you're looking for favorite chapters, I would put John 17, Romans 8, and maybe Psalm 23 and whatever comes

about, you can count on those texts.

But that's not really my goal isn't to have you have three favorite chapters, but just so you have a know that those are

good references to keep.

If you're struggling, go to those chapters.

But he says in Romans chapter 8 verses 38 and 39, he says, For I am sure, this is Roman or Paul talking, for I am

sure that neither death nor life nor angels, nor rulers, nor things present, nor things to come, nor height, nor depth, nor any

other creature shall be able to separate us from the love of God in Christ Jesus.

So as long as we're in Christ Jesus, nothing is able to separate us from God.

And that is good news.

We are eternally kept.

God the Son is asking God the Father, omnipotent, that means all powerful, all present,

to keep us.

We're being kept.

There's no chance of us falling or anybody, Satan, sneaking in there.

And you might say, well, what about the Son of Destruction in verse 12?

How isn't that going to happen to me?

Maybe you want to look at it.

It says, Not one of them has been lost except the Son of Destruction.

So just so you're hearing it clearly, this situation is that God has, Jesus chose Judas.

And he set him up, or he used him to betray him.

It's part of the plan.

It wasn't that Judas just, or Satan come up and snatch Judas.

When Jesus wasn't looking, it wasn't that at all.

In fact, it was part of the plan.

In John 13, 18, when they're at that Last Supper, we see at the beginning of the meal, Jesus is quoting

Psalm 41, 9.

He says, Even my close friend in whom I trusted, who ate my bread, has lifted up his heel against me.

So how is this guy lost?

What the text says, so that the Scripture may be fulfilled.

That's why he was lost.

So if we think about us, the reason that we're not going to be lost, at a

minimum, it's so that Romans 8, 38, and 39 can be fulfilled.

Scripture, this is going to stand for eternity.

This isn't going away.

Everything that's written down in here will be fulfilled.

God will accomplish all his purposes.

So if it says that nothing's going to separate us from the love of God in Christ Jesus, if nothing else, it's because that

says it.

Not because of anything that we've done.

So that is a reason to praise God.

In verse 13, Jesus also prays that we may have joy fulfilled in ourselves.

Jesus is asking God that we would have joy.

And how do we get this joy?

If we look at the text, verse 13, he says,.

But now I am coming to you, and these things I speak in the world, that they may have joy fulfilled in themselves.

The argument there, he says, but now I am coming to you.

And this is Jesus talking to the Father God.

He's here in this world, and he's going to go back to be with God in heaven, God the Father.

The only way he does that is by dying on a cross for our sins.

So how do we have joy fulfilled in ourselves?

By remembering what Jesus is going to do in that.

Because he dies for our sins, we, and he resurrects, and he puts on immortality, we

also have that same joy to look forward to.

We also are going to be hidden.

Colossians 3 says,.

So we have this idea of resurrection, that we have eternity to look forward, where we can shed this

mortality, this corruption, we can put on immortality, incorruptible.

How good, better news is that we can spend eternity with God without sin.

But there's also joy in the today, because we are hidden in Christ.

If we're in Christ, we are loved by God, and we have victory over sin, and we just need to

walk in that.

So Jesus is foreseeing his death.

He's looking, he's at the shadow of the cross here.

Within the next week, he knows that's what's coming.

He's about to relieve this earth.

We see that in verses 14, 15, and 16.

He says,

So please know that John's using the word world here in two different ways.

There's the world, this place that we live, and there's the world, the idea of those that are opposed to the things of God.

So it can be a little bit confusing, but the idea here is that we would be in the world,

but not of the world.

And you may have heard that before, and really that's the basis for the simplicity, the S in the acronym of RECAST,

is that we would be in the world.

And how do they relate?

So simplicity, the idea is that there are a lot of things that we could be doing at RECAST that would be getting people

in God's word more and be doing things that are good.

And you would have a hard time arguing, no, that's not a good thing to be doing.

We could have children's programs, but how many of you know that everything that you set up, you have to have people to

set that up?

You have to have workers, you have to have people preparing for that, and then that time is gone.

So the simplicity is to not do those things because those take away from our opportunity to be in our communities.

I can't have my neighbor over tonight because I'm going to church, and then tomorrow we're taking the kids to this retreat, and then

you see how keeping things simple enables us to stay in our community.

So while that's good for us to be in our community, the danger is that we go so far into the community that we

lose our message, that we become so much like the world that no one can tell the difference.

We've totally compromised the truth because we wanted to be in the world and we'll tolerate anything.

And I think of the example of Vlad, if you're not familiar with his story, he takes his family to a city, Sodom and

Gomorrah, just completely wicked.

God sends angels to tell him, I'm going to light this city up, I'm going to destroy it, you've got to go.

And he tells his sons -in -law, let's go, we've got to go.

And they laugh at him, he's a joke to them because he's totally lost his credibility with them.

So our challenge is to hang on to the truth but be in the world.

So we should be in the world but not of the world.

That makes sense and you can understand why we have the simplicity in our acronym.

In verse 17, Jesus asks, another thing that he asks, he asks God to sanctify us in truth, so

sanctifying is being set apart, made holy.

Jesus is asking God to sanctify us.

How do we get sanctified?

God does it.

How does Jesus ask God to sanctify us?

How does God do it?

By working in us and through us by truth.

That's what the text says, verse 17, we'll read it.

Sanctify them in the truth, your word is truth.

So what is truth?

It is your word.

This is God's word.

That's how he's going to do it, he's going to change us from one degree of glory to another by his word.

And I know in our current culture, absolute truth is not a popular concept.

A lot of people, well, your truth is your truth but it's not mine.

What I think is true is not necessarily true for you.

It's all about perception and different realities.

And we have this information age where we have so much information, you can Google anything and unfortunately you

can find two different perspectives both saying the exact opposite thing and how are we to know what is true and what isn't?

I mean, you think of this guy, he's been tested hundreds of times and he's never had a positive example, surely these guys are just after him.

That has to be true, but it's not the case at all.

I work in research and there are peer -reviewed legitimate journals that are looking at

objective data.

There's no witchcraft involved, there's no slant on it, they're just looking at the data and making conclusions and that's what

science is and that's why science has become sort of like our God.

The current research says this is the way it's going, that has to be true.

However, journals 30 and 40 years old carry no weight.

We know so much more now that no one's referencing those things.

I work in research, I'm not saying science is wrong, it's just we have such a narrow scope, we don't see everything that's

going on.

We don't know exactly what is truth.

I brought up the example of if you have a newborn and you bring them home, should they sleep on their stomach or

their back?

It's changed 14 times since I've been having kids.

So we can't count on what the world says, but we can count on

this.

This is not changing, your word is truth.

And we can die on this because it's not going away.

In verse 19 we see Jesus indicating that for our sake He is consecrating Himself.

So consecrates Him, He's preparing Himself.

This is where we get the title of the chapter, High Priestly Prayer.

He is acting as our High Priest, He's preparing Himself.

What is He preparing Himself for?

He's going to the cross, He's going to do what the whole host of human

history pivots on and that is Jesus dying and raising again to conquer death and have victory.

That really is the fundamental verse of this whole text.

It is centered around that because He is making intercession to God the Father on our behalf.

He is acting as our High Priest.

So we move to the third section of this prayer in verse 20.

Jesus is praying for those who will believe.

And this assuredly applies to us.

And He has us specifically in mind when He's saying those who yet will believe.

And He prays for us in verse 21.

What He prays for us is profound to me.

He says that they may all be one.

So He's not praying that we would have a oneness in vision or a oneness in

attitude.

And how He characterizes it is just as you, Father, are in me

and I in you, that they also may be in us.

Now that's different, that's taking it up a notch.

Jesus is praying that our unity with one another would be like the unity between the Father and the Son.

We see in verses 23 and 25 that this relationship is founded on love.

That we would love one another like God loves us.

That we would be one just as God and Jesus are one and perfectly one.

No tension in that relationship.

They're exchanging things freely.

This is a profound prayer for recast.

It's also instructive.

We who are in Christ are in unity with Christ and the Father.

So we have this relationship.

We're in Christ, He's made that, He's reconciled us to Him.

So we are one there.

But we're to be one with one another to that same degree.

I don't know about you, but I think there's room for us to grow here.

I have a hard enough time knowing everyone's name with the rapid growth that we've seen at recast.

Let alone loving everyone here to that extent.

We're having a relationship.

I don't think God's asking us to have a deep relationship with one another.

But the relationship that we have with those here that we know are in Christ and our fellow brothers and sisters in Christ

should be a relationship that's altogether different than the relationship we have with our own family if those family members are not believers.

This text is a correction to the idea that we should just show up at church.

He wants us to be part of church.

He wants us to engage in church.

Actively engage in loving one another.

The church is a body, an active body of believers.

We should be loving one another.

Showing up and singing once a week without engaging is missing the mark.

As elders, our prayer is the same as Jesus.

We desire for everyone to be engaged in a relationship.

I recognize that it's hard.

I'm introverted.

I don't find it's not easy for me to talk to people.

To get to the point where I can share my struggles with someone is not an easy thing to do.

So what we've done at recast, we've tried to lower that hurdle, that bar a little bit, and get you into a smaller group.

So we have small groups, 8 to 12 people that love God.

And you can exchange, you can have love for one another.

It's an easier opportunity for you to share your burdens, your struggles with one another, and to be praying for

one another, and to be serving one another.

Just like Jesus in that upper room washed one another's feet, that we would serve one another.

We would wash each other's feet, figuratively.

Small groups are not for everyone.

We understand that.

And I'll just pause and go back a notch.

So at recast, the on -ramp for small groups is through Rob Knoll, here one of our elders.

He's coordinating all that.

He has a list of names and leaders, and he can get you plugged in.

If you desire to have this relationship, and we pray that you do, that is an on -ramp.

And it doesn't work for everyone.

If you're not in a small group, that doesn't mean you're out.

That's just what we've created.

What we would encourage you to do is be in a relationship where someone can be asking you, how is your walk going with your spouse?

How are you loving your spouse?

How are you loving your kids?

How is your walk going with God?

Are you growing in God?

So if you don't have that relationship, we desire for you to have that, and we desire for you to have that, because that's what Scripture is asking.

And you can find a greater joy there than I think that you can find on your own.

Certainly, not that I think, that I know that you can find on your own.

So, I'm done.

I have a pretty good track record of blazing through a 15 -minute sermon in like 15 minutes.

So it says, but I want to be clear on this.

It says our goal is not unity.

We all should be one, but that's not our goal.

If we make unity our goal, we will end up in destruction.

What we're going to end up doing is compromising our core value of truth.

If we get into a situation where someone has a different belief than ours, and we tolerate that for the sake of

unity, we've totally compromised everything that we have the basis for our unity.

So we believe in Jesus Christ for the forgiveness of our sins, and if we compromise that core belief, then

we don't have a relationship anymore.

We're going to end in destruction.

Unity is a byproduct of being sold out for the glory of God, that I am going to live my

life for the glory of God, and you are too, and that is how we have unity.

It's not that we have some other vision in mind.

And I get this from verse 23.

It says, I in them and you in me that they may become perfectly one.

That we may become perfectly one.

So that the world may know that you sent me and love them even as you love me.

Our purpose in life, the reason we were created, is to know the love of Christ and to share that and to

manifest the glory of God to others by loving one another.

So by serving one another, by sharing truth, by just loving and praying for one another, we are

displaying the glory of God, and that's why we're made.

That's what we should be pursuing in our lives.

And so doing those things, our goal and our purpose in life is to glorify God.

Our lives should manifest that perfect majesty, that splendor of God, and that should be revealed, that should be clear to people, that

whatever that is, however that relationship shows itself to others, they see the way we treat one another, they see the way we love one another,

they should stand out to this world, that's different.

However you want to say that is, that's the glory of God, and that is why we were made.

So each week at Recast we take an opportunity to celebrate the Lord's Supper.

And by doing that we are celebrating and remembering what Jesus Christ did for us.

He bought for us this reconciliation that we have with God.

We're able to have oneness with Him through His perfect life and broken body, the cracker representing His broken

body on the cross and His blood being shed for us, we have forgiveness in sins.

So we invite you, we're going to pass crackers and juice for you to take an opportunity to remember what Jesus did for you.

However, if you are not in Christ, you shouldn't just feel pressure to

eat the cracker and drink the juice, because it is an act of remembrance.

You'd be better off to not do that.

But also just take an opportunity while you're sitting there, no one's going to judge you, to just consider what is holding you back from accepting Jesus

Christ as your Savior.

Let's pray.

Father God in heaven, Lord, we thank You again for Your Word.

We thank You for giving us this window into Your relationship, Jesus, with the Father God, that we can

see how You were praying for us and how You loved us, and that we would have love for one another.

God, we are desiring to be used by You and to glorify You, that we present our bodies as living

sacrifice to You, holy and acceptable, that we might worship You by our actions.

Lord, we thank You for dying on that cross and reconciling us.

And as we remember that death through the eating of the cracker and drinking of the juice, we pray that our

hearts would be one with You and that we would be one with one another as we see one another doing this.

And it's in Your name we pray.

Amen.

I'd just like to close in a quick word of prayer.

Heavenly Father, we thank You for Your love for us, Lord, for Jesus

Christ, for His blood shed on our behalf.

Father, we thank You for Your Word preached and proclaimed this morning.

And as we reflect on the many themes and just the powerful message from

John 17, Lord, I just pray You would encourage us.

Lord, help our hearts be united in love for one another, in true love, in sacrificial love that we can show.

Lord, help us be Your representatives here on earth as we go out today.

We pray all of this in the powerful name of Jesus.

Amen.

Go in peace.

Go in God's peace.