In the Shadow of the Cross - Jesus Prays for His Disciples (2) — J. Glyn Owen

Jesus Intercedes as the High Priest for His Disciples

Now to John chapter 17 once again taking us our main theme in the shadow of the cross and our subject Jesus prays for his first followers. The passage beginning with verse 11 and continuing to verse 19.

We have already looked at this passage on one occasion and we turn to it again tonight. I ought to say that originally it had been my intention only to preach three sermons on this whole chapter but I have been persuaded otherwise and we should probably continue it for a few Sunday evenings since there is so much in it of relevance and of profit to the people of God and we shall probably continue with it for a little while yet.

Now the main subject before us tonight is this. Our Lord Jesus Christ as the high priest of his people postulates their problems before the throne of God, anticipates their needs in the presence of God.

He's not acting as a prophet foretelling the future though he is prophetic but he is acting as the high priest and he is reminding the father of what he can see beyond the immediate down into the days that were then unborn and in the light of what he with his eye and vision could behold he then brings his people and their needs into the presence of the father and he prays for them.

Let's remind ourselves that in verses 6 and 8 he began this intercession for his people in a most orderly fashion presenting their credentials as it were before the father. Then not only did he thus call attention to the propriety of his representing them before the father but having having so done he professed his special interest in them as in counter distinction from everyone else.

I pray he says for them. I'm not praying for the world. Times were when he he sought the year of his heavenly father on behalf of ungodly men as he did on the cross and cried father forgive them for they know not what they do.

But here in this high priestly prayer he is not praying for the world but he is praying as he tells us for those whom the father had given him. This is the high priest representing his people carrying them on his shoulders, carrying them on his heart, carrying them in his arms, carrying them into the presence of the father there to intercede on their behalf.

Three Areas of Peril in the Disciples’ Future

Now what is there that remains in these verses for us to look at tonight? Well the first thing is of course is a vision, brief though it may be, of what the high priest our Savior foresaw as imminent, requiring him to plead to the father on behalf of those whom he was about to leave behind in the world to do his will.

The circumstances which Jesus foresaw. Nowhere do the shepherding and pastoral instincts of our Lord surpass their expression in this particular prayer. Ever alert to the dangers seen and unseen that would menace his people, Jesus mentions to the father such menacing circumstances as he sees looming on the horizon near or far and forming a threat to those that he's leaving behind.

With as perfect a knowledge of his sheep as of what was about to take place, he enfolds them in his arms and he carries them into the presence of the father and he pleads that God, the father in heaven, would now take charge of them whom he has guarded and kept whilst he was with them in the flesh.

Now there are three areas of potential peril that are postulated by our Lord and then he prays for these needs. First of all, there are needs that he foresees as arising from his own pending physical departure, his absence from them in the flesh.

Then from the world's malevolence or hatred or bitterness, however you like to speak of it. And then thirdly, there is the menace of the evil one. Our Lord distinguishes the evil world from the evil one and he will have some particular prayers to offer because of the evil one who is abroad in the world and he will thus cover the entirety of the foreseen needs of his people by his intercessory prayer.

It's a wonderful picture. If any of you here tonight are feeling a little bit timid, if any of you are feeling afraid of life, afraid of death, afraid of the things that may face you tomorrow, if there are timid hearts here tonight, I plead with you, come to terms with this great prayer of our Lord's.

And if you can see that in this chapter he not only embraced 11 disciples of long ago, but he still indicates the kind of interest that he has in his own and will have to the end of the edge, you have here something to lean upon that will give you peace.

And even as he tells us here, even joy in the midst of such a perverse and wicked generation in a world such as is envisaged here. Now, first of all, let's see some of the needs that our Lord foresaw as being due to his own pending physical departure, his absence from the disciples, that is his physical absence.

The Disciples Face Christ’s Physical Departure

Let me just cull a few words here from verses 11, 12, and 13. Now he says in his prayer, I am no more in the world. He is speaking as if he had already gone, though of course we know that he was there for a little while yet, but he is anticipating that.

Now he says I am no more in the world, but they are in the world, and I am coming to thee. Then a little further on, while I was with them I kept them in thy name, which thou gavest me. Then a little later on, but now I am coming to thee.

Facing what was to them at that stage a chilly necessity of living on in the world in the absence of the physical Christ they had come to know and to love, their spirits sagged, sagged almost to a point of despair.

I guess we have some indication of their mood in the way our Lord spoke or addressed himself to it earlier when he said a way back in chapter 14, let not your hearts be troubled. Now that very word indicates, you see, that our Lord could see into their hearts, see into their souls, into their minds a dread, a foreboding, an anguish, a concern.

They just didn't know how to cope in the physical absence of the one around whom they've built all their castles, and there was no other around whom they could build their castles. It was directly to that condition of their troubled hearts that Jesus had addressed himself in John 14 particularly, but even later on in chapters 15 and 16.

And yet the truth and significance of those words were still to penetrate. Oh, they'd heard them a way back there, but they hadn't penetrated. But now comes the moment of truth, and what a moment of truth it was.

Had anyone charged these disciples with being skeptical and unbelieving in connection with what Jesus had taught them in John 14, 15, and 16, they would have said, not at all. We believe everything he tells us.

We've learned to believe him and to trust him. But even so, the words have not penetrated. Even at that stage, neither his first announcement of his soon departure, nor his subsequent enlargement of that announcement with references to his preparation and provision for them in their new circumstances, none of these things had really got through.

They'd heard them with a physical ear, but the message had not got through. And we all know what that is. We hear the words, we hear the sounds, but the message doesn't penetrate. It's very comforting for those of us who seek to present the Word of God to realize that even in the presence of the Incarnate Lord, there were those who heard the words.

It wasn't that their hearing was faulty, they heard the words, but they never got the message. Or at least, they didn't get the message immediately. They were apparently, if I dare say so, too stunned to take it in.

And so they missed the comfort that might have been theirs by simply accepting the truths enunciated in John chapters 14 to 16. A moment of truth came when listening to their Lord in prayer, notice, not directly telling them what was coming to happen, he's done that, but indirectly now, as far as they are concerned, directly praying to his Father.

Indirectly teaching them by directly praying to the Father. And as he was praying to the Father, he said this, they heard him say this, now he said, I'm no more in the world, but they are in the world, and I am coming to you.

And it seems from everything that we have before us, from the evidence that we have before us, that that was the point when the truth got home. What? He really means what he says. He's really leaving.

He's going to leave us behind. The truth given in didactic form had not penetrated, but when they overheard him say to his all-knowing Father, Father, I'm coming home. I'm no longer going to be in the world, these will be in the world, but I'm coming to you.

They knew that his prayers were no soliloquies. They knew that when Jesus prayed, it wasn't a one-way traffic. They knew that God heard and God answered. There was communion. And they knew that God was real, and when he says I'm coming home, they knew he meant it.

A moment of truth had arrived, and they knew that they were now facing, they were standing on the borders of a new period and a new era in their lives. A time of transition was about to begin. And what a transition it was.

Let me explain it for a moment. I don't suppose we can ever really appreciate what all this meant. But let's try to, because you see, I want to make it quite clear tonight, the main thing I believe we should be doing as we meditate on this word tonight is worship.

Worshiping the Glory of Christ

Now let me say that. You know there are times when we need to listen to the Word of God simply to worship, just to worship, nothing else. Forget about our own needs even, a while, a while I say. And even forget about the needs of the world, a while.

Because if we've truly worshipped, we'll have to come back to ourselves and the needs of the world. But what I would like us to do tonight is to listen to these words to worship, so that from every pew that is used here in Knox tonight, there is ascending to the throne of God a worship that is acceptable.

Now look at this. See the greatness of our high priest. See the magnificence of our Savior. See something of his glory as the Redeemer of his people. He knows that they're in for a time of transition.

What was the time of transition that he makes provision for? Well, first of all, the transition from dependence upon a physically tangible person to one of faith in the same person, but now in the guise of an incorporeal spirit.

Now that is the change of considerable magnitude. Up until that moment, their faith has been reposed in God incarnate. God in flesh. God who could be seen to have a body, for he dwelt in that body, and could be touched, and could be heard, and you could sit down with him, and you could have a meal with him.

God incarnate. But soon there is coming the moment when they need to have the same kind of faith in the same person, but not dwelling anymore in a physical body. Nevertheless, being with them. No, not simply with them, but in them.

And because in them, not localized to any place, or any building, or any time, but everywhere, wherever they are, wherever they go, so that where two or three together are meeting in his name, he's there.

I say it is difficult for us to appreciate the challenge it must have been for those concerned. The very notion of the same person being actually, and equally present, and dynamically real in spirit form, as he had been when he was with them in the flesh, is really something that must have made them rub their eyes and see, are we hearing things right?

We can hardly contemplate the possibility of such a thing without entertaining doubtful thoughts as to whether they were not really in for a rude shock. How can he be the same if he's not physically present with them?

Don't you find yourself asking that? Could our Lord really have meant what he said when he says, it's expedient for you that I go away? Moreover, the fact that Jesus should now announce his transition as imminent brings the whole thing right up to date, and it's got to be faced right now.

He says to the Father, I'm on my way. I'm coming home. He told them in John 14 when I'm going to the Father. Now I'm going home. Now he's telling the Father I'm coming. It's almost as if he's en route, and he will be in a moment, for he's going to the cross, and that was the first stage.

Now however, he announces first his departure, and now he announces first his departure, and then his apparent continuance with them by the Holy Spirit, but they can't easily take it in. How are they going to become accustomed to the Lord Jesus being still present with them by the Spirit?

Living by Faith Through the Spirit

But now the real point of transition, I suppose, can be put in this way. The real transition for them was involved in having to put into practice truth that they had not only heard once, but in most cases they've heard truths repeated over and over again in different ways.

They have received divine truth from the lips of their incarnate Lord, whom they were quite sure was none other than the Son of God and the promised Messiah of the Scriptures. They've received the Word of God through him.

Now the transition is this. Now they must begin to act upon the truth they've been taught in the absence, in the physical absence of the teacher. Fundamentally, the life of faith was about to begin, or perhaps more accurately, to begin in a new sense.

Moving into the new era of the Spirit, they must now learn to act upon such knowledge as they had derived from their Lord during his incarnation, during his physical presence. Armed with such facts as they had received from Jesus and which they have believed on his authority, they must now trust him.

Trust him implicitly as they move into the new situation. If their faith in him was genuine, and he himself was indeed the Messiah, Son of the Living God, then they must believe what he taught and they must act upon his teaching.

You say, what teaching? Well, his entire teaching. This is really the moment for action, you see, for real response. He's leaving them physically, but he says, I will be with you by the Spirit. And he is asking them to continue to exercise trust in him and obedience to him in the new situation.

What truths? Well, let me refer to the fact that Jesus had said he was going home. The truth that he was going to be with his Father is a truth that they needed to take and believe and act upon. You ask me how?

Well, first of all, in believing that he was not going to be entangled in the underworld of death, but that he was going to be with the Father. And they need from this moment on, or from the moment of his resurrection on, or his ascension onwards, they need to see that the Lord Jesus Christ is no longer, or should I put it like this, is not just a nebulous person that has just gone somewhere, but no one knows where.

They need to see him as one who has moved into the presence of the Father, and that was his original home, and he's gone back home. You see, it can make such a difference to your life and mine. If you and I can really see this in focus, when Jesus ascended to the Father, he went back home.

That was his eternal habitat, the kind of place he lived in. That was the kind of palace he came from. And though he went back home via Golgotha, and via Galilee, and the mount outside from which he ascended, he went back home to be with the Father, face-to-face with the Father.

And if you want to add to that the teaching of John 14, those first few verses, he's gone there to prepare a place for his disciples. Now, they need to be reorientated in mind to see him there, to think of him there.

That's his address from now forward. He's there, he's with the Father, and if they want to come to the Father, he's there to be their mediator. I've no time to enlarge upon this, deserving though it is, but it's a very, very important truth.

You and I need to see Jesus at home with the Father whenever we pray. We may well be frightened to draw near to the Holy One. Unless we are aware of the mediator with the wounds in his hand, the Lamb in the midst of the throne, we may well cower with the sense of fear and dread that we, the sons and daughters of men who have sinned ourselves to loss and to doom, should be drawing near to the Holy One.

But we have an advocate with the Father, with the Father. Jesus is at home, and because he is there, we may come. For his blood atones for our sins, and his righteousness covers our nakedness, and his promises covers the exigency.

We may come to the Father in him. But now they have to make the transition. He's been standing here at their side. They saw him. He sat in the boat and he taught them. They could hear his voice, but now where is he?

There he is, with the Father. Come again. Not only the truth about whom, but closely related to this is our Lord's teaching about the Father himself. I really am only referring to these things now. They had been taught so much about the Father in one way or another.

Just read Matthew's Gospel. Read chapters 5 and 6 and 7, for example. See how much Jesus teaches about the Father, if not directly, then indirectly. Or in the Lord's Prayer, how we should pray to the Father.

Hallowed be thy name, thy kingdom come, thy will be done on earth as it is in heaven, as the one who forgives, as the one who provides our daily bread, as the one to whom all the honor and all the glory and all the power is due forever and ever.

Amen. You see, now everything that they've been taught about the Father needs to be put into operation. They need to apply it. It's a new era. Jesus is, the teacher is gone. The physical Christ is gone.

Now they must put it into operation. I think Philip expressed the yearnings of all of them when he said, Lord show us the Father and it sufficeth us. I like the King James rendering of that. Show us the Father and it sufficeth us.

You see, this is just proving what I said a little earlier on. Jesus had said so much about the Father too, but it had never got through. Not really. So that here he too is pleading ignorant. Well, I wonder in what sense was he ignorant.

Probably he remembered a lot that had been said, but there's a difference now. Now I suppose it's like this. Can I give you an illustration? It's like a young trainee pilot. He's had his instructor alongside of him, teaching him for so long, two, three, four months.

They've been up together. But now comes the moment of truth. He's got to fly alone. And if he's got to fly alone, he can't be uncertain about anything. And when he's got to face the issue of taking the little plane up into the sky alone, he becomes strangely aware of the things concerning which he's uncertain.

I believe that's what happened to Philip. If you'd asked Philip to repeat some of the things that Jesus said about the Father or about home or about some other subject, I'm sure he could have answered some of your questions.

He now he realizes that he needs to know the Father for himself. This is where we all fall down. See, it is one thing to memorize scripture. Oh, don't let anyone think that the preacher tonight is against memorizing scripture.

I would to God that we all did it. But even memorizing scripture, you see, is not enough. I can have all the words of scripture memorized without applying the truth of scripture to my given life situation.

And this is where we begin to grow in grace. This is really the life of faith. When the truth I know is now appropriated and applied to the several details and trials and temptations of life. And I put it to the test.

I fly alone with God. Oh, there are many other truths here. I don't need to go in into the situation. But you see, there was a point of transition. Jesus, the teacher, had been with them. He'd been alongside of them and he pulled them up when they were not doing things properly.

And he chided them now and again. But now he's leaving physically. And they didn't have all that confidence at that stage in the coming paraclete that Jesus would come and be with them equally by the Spirit, in the Spirit.

And so this was going to be for them a time of trial. Jesus knew exactly what lay ahead of them. They must come to know the Father and they must be able to trust the Spirit because it's going to be a time of real trial and a real temptation.

He knew exactly what lay ahead of his followers as a group and as individually. Every feature in the emerging events appear to have been clearly foreseen by him and you can sense the awareness of peril and of trial that he foresees when he prays.

Listen to these words. I'm just taking out a few words from verses 12 and 13. Whilst I was with them, he says to the Father, I kept them in your name. I guarded them. And none of them has been lost, he says, but the son of perdition that the Scriptures might be fulfilled.

But now I'm coming away. He said, Jesus is reflecting his own awareness of the peril and of the problem and of the plight of things that he can foresee ahead. Listening to him uttering these words, they evidently, they must surely have become strangely aware of their indebtedness to him whilst he was still with them.

They may not have recognized how much they owed him at that stage. But they also became immensely challenged by the fact that now he, the one around whom they've built everything, he, Christ incarnate, is leaving.

Christ’s Keeping and Guarding Ministry

Now just look at these two words for a moment. Jesus refers to himself and he says, whilst I was with them, I kept them. And then later on, another word altogether, I guarded them. The word I kept them, the underlying Greek word, means or suggests the kind of careful, watchful eye with which one observes something or someone that is precious or important.

It's a word that is used for guarding treasures, for watching, keeping your eye on something that is very precious to you or very important, as the case may be. It need not be precious to you, but it is something valuable.

The word is used even of those who watched over Jesus around the cross of the soldiers. They had to keep an eye on him because he was a special prisoner that had been now crucified. The same word is used of the manner in which love keeps his commandments.

Love is careful to keep the commandments. I have kept them. I've kept them as the objects of my love, says the Lord Jesus. I've had my eyes upon them. Thus had the ever wakeful, ever watching Savior continually kept his disciples under strict surveillance, and especially so when danger loomed on the horizon.

Now you read the Gospels carefully and you will see how this is reflected over and over again in the Gospels. Jesus warned them of different things they couldn't see, but he could. He saw the danger. He was sensitive to what was happening.

He warned them, for example, of the peril of pollution by the leaven of the Pharisees, Matthew 16, of being perverted by covetousness, Luke 12, or of being misled by false prophets more than once. Jesus acted as an infallible radar screen and he forewarned them of coming dangers.

He watched them. He had his eyes on them because he loved them. They were the Father's and they were his, and because they were the Father's and because they were his, they were precious in his sight.

But he says more than that he kept them, he says that he guarded them. The action suggested by this verb goes beyond that of the previous one. Commonly used of the work of a sentry guarding a palace or a fort, or some such object of significance, the action positively envisages the possibility or even probability of an alien intrusion or attack.

I was on guard, says Jesus. I was on guard. I stood watch. They didn't always know what was happening. They didn't know what was happening all around them. They didn't know of the satanic powers attempting to get hold of them.

They didn't know of how the devil tried to get them out of my hand and my father's hand, but I was on guard. He that keepeth Israel neither slumbers nor sleeps, and they're here today, says to the Father.

Not one of them is lost but the son of loss. Jesus doesn't accept any responsibility for the son of perdition who's gone to perdition. None of those whom you have given me, he says, is lost. I've not lost one because I've been on guard.

I've had my eyes on them and I've stood sentry. You know, my friend, I want to tell you, when we arrive in glory and the trumpet is sounded and the dead will be raised, Jesus will say exactly the same to the Father.

Not one of them is lost. He'll get you home, believer. He'll get you out of the grave, and if you're buried in the sea or if you're burned in the fire, he'll get you home and in your new body. Not one of them is lost but the son of perdition.

That the Scriptures might be fulfilled, he keeps, he serves to the uttermost those that come to God by him. Now, I'm sorry if I tend to go off at attention. It's such a massive subject, isn't it? With such words did our Lord remind the Father of the tender solicitude with which he had unfailingly cared for the human treasures that the Father had put in his hands.

Eleven saved men who are to be the pillars of his church and the apostles. Whether we think of his word in terms of this general metaphor, keeping, guarding, or whether we take some of the other metaphors of the New Testament, the picture is is equally clear.

I found my, I really found my imagination going back into the Gospels just to try and remember some of the other metaphors that describe the same thing. Jesus is the King of the kingdom and he's kept his subjects.

Jesus is the teacher of his disciple and he's kept his teachers, his pupils, those who've been his disciples, he's kept them from harm. He's even used this kind of metaphor, as a hen gathers her brood under her wings, what a beautiful picture, or as a good shepherd gathers his sheep under his care.

He's kept his own, he says, and he will to the end of time. He's never changed and he won't change. He's not subject to death, he's not subject to decay. Now after referring to his keeping and guarding ministry in the Father's years, Jesus proceeded to say, but now I'm coming to you.

Jesus is personally aware of the trial that his physical withdrawal is going to mean to his followers. They may well become so obsessed with their past privileges or with their present apparent losses to be wholly insensitive to the vast and adequate provisions he's made for them.

Their innate weaknesses, as well as the immense power of Satan, combine to fill the emerging period with considerable trials for each of them, but he prays for them. He prays for them. Now I want you to notice this, that when Jesus has prayed for them, he has peace concerning them.

He's not worried anymore about them, because he knows that having committed them into the hands and into the keeping of the Father, they are safe. Now let me just say one other word about the next point, and we shall not go much further this evening.

The Church in an Alien and Hostile World

Not only were there needs due to his pending departure, his imminent departure, but there were needs due to their presence in an alien sphere. Now this is important. The fact that Jesus was going physically to leave them, that in and of itself would be would be adequate to shake them and to cause them some anxiety, and we can understand them questioning and wanting to be sure of things, but there's something even worse than that.

It's not just that he's going to depart, and Jesus acknowledges this, you see. He makes much in this context of the fact that they are going to remain in the world, and the world is evil, and in the evil world there is an evil one, or the evil one.

Now the attitude of the world around to those, around those for whom Christ first prayed, as he unburdened his soul in this prayer, is in no doubt whatsoever. Look at what we read here. Let me just give you a few words.

Verse 14, I have given them thy word, and the world has hated them, because they are not of the world even as I am not of the world. Look at verse 16, they are not of the world even as I am not of the world.

And verse 11, oh sorry, yes that's right, verse 11, and now I am no more in the world, but they are in the world. Jesus had no illusions about the moral condition of the world he was about to leave behind as he ascended to the Father, and he clearly forewarns them.

The world hates them, and will hate them. Why does the world hate them? The world hates them very especially because Jesus has given them his word, and they have received that word, and they have believed that God the Father sent both the messenger and his message to them.

And therefore, having believed the word that came from God through his Son, they are no longer belonging to the world as once they did. There's a tremendous truth behind that, isn't there? When you receive, really personally, deliberately receive the gospel, you do not any longer belong to this world as you previously did.

Now if you do, then something's wrong somewhere, radically wrong. And see somebody that can help you in spiritual things. If you say you believe the Lord Jesus Christ, and you believe his message, and you're as comfortable with the things of this world, and you feel that you belong to the worldlings around you, and you can do exactly as they do, and it doesn't worry you, you're still in the groove of the worldly man or the worldly woman, and you say you believe the word that came from God through his Son, friend, there's something wrong.

It doesn't make sense. Because when the word God sent through the word incarnate becomes incarnate, if I can use the word in a different sense, becomes incarnate in us and enters into our hearts, then we are born the second time.

And we are no longer of the world, we are in it, but we're not of it. We are of God, we are born out of God. That's what the scriptures say. Or we are born from above. Why did the world hate Jesus? Because he was the bringer of the divine word that condemned the world in order to save the world, that exposed the sins of the world in order to show the need of the world and to provide salvation for men.

Why does the same world hate men and women who have received the same word? For that very same reason. They too, having received the word, be it a way back there 2 ,000 years ago with the disciples or right here tonight, by your acceptance of the word of God in the gospel, by your acceptance of the truth of the gospel, you are exposing the world and you are condemning the world in one way or another, directly or indirectly, and you're saying this mode of life is wrong and I'm stepping out, I'm quitting.

Just as Noah condemned the world of his day by building an ark for the saving of his soul, as we're told, so do you condemn the world when you leave it and you receive the word of the gospel and you draw near to Christ and trust him as your own.

Yet in a world like that, Jesus left his disciples. And what's more, he did not simply mean, he did not simply expect that they would just remain safe there. Listen, what I find in verse 13 is almost unbelievable.

Jesus is leaving his disciples in a world that was about to crucify him the day after he uttered these words in the presence of the Father, but this is what we read. Now I am coming to thee and these things I speak in the world.

Why? That they may have my joy. Sounds incredible, doesn't it? That they may have my joy in a world that's bitter, hostile, unbelieving, angry, foaming. That's what Jesus prayed for. And this is what he expects us to have.

He's made provision for this, you see. He's not simply made provision for you and for me to be kept safely and to be brought home at last, saved by the skin of our teeth, despite the hostile world. No, no, no, no, no, no.

He's made provision for us to do what he wants us to do in the world and in the midst of an evil, hostile world. I didn't finish the quote. The quote goes even further than to say that they may have my joy.