WWUTT 982 All Mine Are Yours and Yours Are Mine?

When Jesus prayed his high priestly prayer in John 17, he wasn't just praying for his disciples whom he was with, he was also praying for us, we who would come to believe when we understand the text.

Many of the Bible stories and verses we think we know, we don't. When we understand the text is an online ministry committed to teaching sound doctrine and exposing the faulty. Visit our website at www .utt .com.

Now here's our host, Pastor Gabe Hughes.

The High Priestly Prayer in John 17

Thank you, Becky. We continue in John 17, the high priestly prayer that Jesus prayed to close out this upper room discourse that he had with his disciples. I'll begin reading in verse one and we'll go through about verse 12.

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

The Trinity Revealed in Christ and Scripture

So picking up where we left off yesterday, I concluded with verse eight, 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.

Whoever believes in the son, whoever believes in Jesus Christ believes in the father who sent him. Whoever does not believe in the son does not have the father also. Salvation is a Trinitarian work. So though when a person comes to Christ, they may not be able to give some sort of systematic theological definition of what the Trinity is, yet there still should be some understanding that the father so loved the world that he sent his son and whoever believes in him shall not perish, but have everlasting life.

Even a new believer is probably going to struggle to understand that concept of the father sending the son. And it's as they grow in the knowledge of the faith that they come to a deeper understanding of a picture of the triune God according to the very words of Christ himself.

This is how we shape our theology according to Trinity. It's not based on philosophy. It's based on the very word of God, exactly what Jesus said about the father. That's how we come to an understanding of Trinity.

It is born out of the gospels. And as Jesus said in Matthew 11, that no one knows the son except the father and no one knows the father except the son and anyone to whom the son chooses to reveal him.

So a person comes to know God the father because they truly know Jesus Christ. These anti-Trinitarian denominations are heresy. And it's because of passages like the one that I read yesterday, where it says in 1 John 2, 22, who is the liar, but the one who denies that Jesus is the Christ.

This is the antichrist, he who denies the father and the son. No one who denies the son has the father and whoever confesses the son has the father also. Now understand that as whoever truly confesses the son, whoever confesses the son as Jesus has said he is, according to what we read in the gospels, not according to what a person wants Jesus to be.

Just because a person mentions the name of Jesus Christ does not necessarily mean that they're confessing the son. Are they confessing the son according to what the Bible says about him? Or are they confessing a Jesus of their own making?

I can't remember who it was I was listening to recently. I believe it was R .C. Sproul, but he was talking about how a lot of people in the world, especially in the United States, especially in Western culture, Western Europe, US, you might throw Australia in there as well, English speaking parts of the world.

There are a lot of people who are willing to confess some kind of belief in Jesus Christ, but more often than not, they're gonna believe that he is just a great teacher, some historical figure from the past.

It's through a growing development of myth that eventually he became known as the son of God and was worshiped as a deity, but that wasn't the way he started out. This is the way secular culture thinks of him especially, but there may even be some who call themselves Christians who think of Jesus this way.

They're following Jesus just because, or thinking of him as like a Gandhi or a Buddha type character, not that he was truly the son of God who was sent by the father. These folks are not confessing Christ.

They're confessing a Jesus that they've made up in their own minds that is not Christ as he has revealed himself. Once a person starts getting into believing that, the stuff that we believe in the Bible about miracles and Jesus calling himself the son of God and all this stuff was like a development of myth.

Once you start to believe that, there's no reason to believe anything in the Bible. You don't need to believe any of it because you've made up this thing in your mind that there was some sort of escalation of myth that happened over the years and that's the mythology of Jesus and what that's turned into.

Then what good is the Bible? What use is any of this? We form our thoughts not based on our speculations of what has happened sometime after all of this stuff was written down in the Bible. We have to go according to the words themselves and our understanding of Trinitarian theology, who the father is, who the son is, how we define the Holy Spirit.

All of this comes from what was said by God through his prophets and apostles to men. Even as we're reading John here, you may have a Bible that may be a red letter Bible and the whole high priestly prayer is gonna be written in red ink because Jesus is the one saying it.

The words of Christ are written in red in a red letter Bible, right? But it's still the apostles that are giving us this word. This isn't Jesus taking his own hand to paper and writing down what it was that he prayed.

It's the apostle John who was there in the upper room who heard Jesus say this that then led him to write down what we have in his gospel and then later his epistles for second and third John and even the book of Revelation.

So though it's in red letters, it was an apostle who wrote it. There are some that try to kind of elevate the red letters or the words of Christ above the rest of the Bible. Can't do that. All of it is the word of God.

Second Timothy 3 .16, all scripture is God breathed. It comes from God. Second Peter 1 .21, no prophecy was produced by the will of man, but men spoke from God as they were carried along by the Holy Spirit.

All of this that we have in scripture comes from God. John 17 is as much the word of Christ as Deuteronomy 17. All of it is the word of Christ. It all comes from God through his Holy Spirit to the prophets or the apostles who wrote it down.

It might've been a man with his pen who wrote it, but it wasn't his own word and it wasn't by his own will. It was by the will of God through the Holy Spirit that was upon them to write down exactly what God wanted them to write.

And what we have, this message that has been preserved for us and we're reading even here in the Bible today is what God revealed to us about himself through his son Christ to his apostles and now therefore to us.

We know the father through the son. No one has ever seen the father. This goes all the way back to when we started our study of the gospel of John in John 1 18. No one has ever seen God. The only God who is at the father's side, that's the son, he has made him known.

No one has seen the father, but we know the glory of the father through the glory of the son Christ and what has been revealed to us in his word. So we come to believe who the father is through what the son has shown us about the father.

As it says in Colossians 1, all the fullness of God was pleased to dwell bodily in Christ. All the fullness of God was in Christ. There was nothing lacking in Christ Jesus. It's not like Jesus wasn't enough and so we have to go to the father as well.

It's all of God or nothing. It's father, son and Holy Spirit upon the believer or it's nothing at all. There's not a little bit of God in the son and a little bit of God in the father and then a little bit more in the Holy Spirit.

You have one, you have all of God and the fullness of God dwelt bodily in the son Jesus Christ who reveals to us the father. Jesus says in verse nine, I am praying for them. I am not praying for the world but for those whom you have given me for they are yours.

Christ Prays for His Disciples and the Elect

Now there is a certain sense in which what we're reading here in verse nine is explicitly about the disciples who are there with Jesus in the upper room. When we started this discourse last week or we started the high priestly prayer last week on Wednesday I broke it down with Jesus praying about himself verses one through five and then praying for his disciples, the 12 or the 11 as it would be there in the upper room verses six through 19 and then praying for us in verses 20 through 26.

But even this statement here in verse nine is not exclusive to the disciples there in the upper room. It's certainly the immediate context certainly pertains to them but it's not exclusive to them. It would also include us because we now are disciples of Jesus Christ through faith in him.

Not just, it wasn't just the men who walked with him on earth 2000 years ago who are called disciples. You and I, we are disciples also if we are followers of Christ. So when Jesus says, I am praying for them I am not praying for the world but for those whom you have given me for they are yours that includes us.

It's the disciples who are with Christ in the upper room and it's also us. And I made the reference yesterday back to John 10 where my father who gives them to me is greater than all and no one is able to snatch them out of my father's hand.

I and the father are one. And also Titus 2 .14 that Christ died for us to redeem us from all lawlessness and purify for himself a people for his good works. We are the inheritance of Christ. We are what God the father gave to the son as an inheritance because of his faithfulness to do the will of the father.

Verse 10, all mine are yours and yours are mine and I am glorified in them. We're about to start up a series in Ephesians in our church. And so just recently going through Ephesians one once again preparing for the introductory sermon to our study in Ephesians.

It says in verse 18 that Paul prays for the Ephesians to know what is the hope to which he has called you. What are the riches of his glorious inheritance in the saints? And what is the immeasurable greatness of his power toward us who believe according to the working of his great might that he worked in Christ.

Now this statement here about the glorious inheritance in the saints is not talking about the inheritance that we will receive although that certainly talked about a lot over the course of the New Testament that in Christ we receive an inheritance as our reward.

But this inheritance in this case in Ephesians 118 is referring to what God gets. It's how precious his people are to him. Those whom he has saved out of the world to himself they are referred to in a crude sort of a manner.

It's just like how can we describe those things that are pleasing to God? It's difficult to quantify it sometimes. So we refer to the receiving of the saints to himself in his kingdom as his inheritance.

It's what God gets and it is how he is glorified that he rescues his own out of the world to himself so that he may be glorified as Jesus also prays here in John 17, all mine are yours and yours are mine and I am glorified in them.

Going back to verse nine for a moment here, Jesus specifically says that he is praying for his disciples, those whom the father has given to him. Those who are with him in the upper room and even those who in the future are going to be brought out of the world and given to Christ, the sheep who know his voice and follow him.

Going back to John 10, my sheep hear my voice and they follow me, a stranger they will not follow. I know them and I call them by name. Okay, so we who are his sheep who have been guaranteed to Christ as an inheritance, whom God had foreordained from before the foundation of the world, he decreed those who would be sheep followers of Jesus Christ.

They are the ones that Jesus is praying for, not everyone else in the world. I am not praying for the world, but for those whom you have given me for they are yours. We see a clear distinction between those who are worldly and those who are going to be called out of the world to be followers of Jesus Christ.

Those disciples that have already been guaranteed to Christ as an inheritance, according to the sovereign decree of God. And so be sure to recognize here, Jesus is not praying for every single person who has ever lived, was living at this time or was going to live.

He was specifically praying for those whom God had already guaranteed to him as an inheritance. Those who would come to salvation by the hearing of the gospel and they would turn from their sin and become followers of Jesus Christ.

These were his disciples who were foreordained. It's not that God set up a plan and whoever wants to become part of it, just come and step into the fold here and you can be part of this thing. No, it's the ones whom God had already designated to be sheep.

And when they hear the call of the shepherd through the message of the gospel, they will follow him because they are his sheep. When we read the command of Christ at the start of the gospel of Mark, repent and believe the gospel.

These are commands. And those who are his sheep will follow them. Those who are not his sheep won't. His sheep will repent and believe the gospel. Now to call the sheep of Christ sheep before they hear the gospel is not to say that one is saved before they hear the gospel.

For as we understand, according to Isaiah 53, all we like sheep have gone astray. We have turned everyone to his own way and the Lord has laid upon him the iniquity of us all. Christ died for his elect.

He died for the saints whom God had appointed to be the inheritance of Christ. He died for those who would later hear the call of the gospel and turn from their sin and follow him and believe it as decreed by the father from the beginning of time.

Everyone who gets saved is saved exactly the same way. It is through the hearing of the gospel and then believing it and following Jesus Christ. That is the only way to salvation. Romans 1 16, I am not ashamed of the gospel for it is the power of God for salvation to all who believe and all who come to believe are the ones whom God had given to his son as an inheritance.

All mine are yours and yours are mine and I am glorified in them. Verse 11, and I am no longer in the world but they are in the world and I am coming to you. Now, even though Jesus was about to be crucified and buried and would rise again from the grave, yet he's saying at this moment because we're entering into the last hour, that hour that has come for Christ to die, he says, I'm no longer in the world.

His work on earth was done to be finished and completed with his death on the cross but they are still in the world. Jesus was gonna ascend back to the father but the disciples were gonna remain in the world 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. So Jesus is not simply praying for salvation of his elect here, he's praying for their sanctification that though they are gonna be in the world that they would not fall into despair but that instead they would be kept in the knowledge of God and the hope and promises that he has given to each one who belongs to Christ who will not be snatched out of his hand.

We had that clarified in John 10 that they may be one even as we are one. Sanctified that the church of Jesus Christ itself would be united in the Holy Spirit and in Christ Jesus whom we serve. Though we will be many, though we will be dispersed over the whole earth yet we would be one in Christ.

Verse 12, 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.

Judas, the Son of Destruction, and the Fulfillment of Scripture

Now of course this is in reference to the disciples who are with them but likewise it pertains to the rest of us. All whom Jesus calls to himself will follow him and none of us will be lost. The only one Christ had called to himself who was lost was the son of destruction and that was for the purpose of the scriptures being fulfilled.

Had Judas not been a follower of Jesus in the sense that he belonged to his disciples and then betrayed him and turned him over to be crucified, had that not happened in fulfillment of what had been prophesied about Judas then we would not have had the atonement for sins.

It was the greatest evil ever perpetrated against God and yet God used it even for the purpose of our salvation that we would come to faith because Jesus Christ was crucified and that event having been brought about because Judas had betrayed him.

Judas being an earthly picture of Satan. Satan had done the same thing. He betrayed God and went against his word rather than being an angel that was supposed to be a herald of his word and the fall from heaven was great.

So it was also the fall of Judas from the presence of Christ which he was in for those years during that earthly ministry. The fall of Judas was so great. May we be held steadfast and firm, faithful to the gospel of Christ which we heard and be kept in it as long as we continue on this earth.

Let's conclude with prayer. Our heavenly father, we thank you for calling us to yourself that we have heard the gospel and come to believe it so that we might be forgiven our sins and so live. When we pray to you in this way, we are not people of the world but we are people of the kingdom that we have access to the father and be able to call upon you because we are yours.

And as we are still here in this world, may we be kept in your name which has been given to your son and has also been given to us that we might be called children of our father in heaven and all of us as your children may be one even as you are one with the son and with the holy spirit.

May we continue to keep your name and not be ashamed of the name but proclaim the name for the salvation of all who believe. And we ask this in Jesus name, amen.

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