Welcome to Expound, our verse
by verse study of God's word. Our goal is to expand your
knowledge of the truth of God by explaining the word of God
in a way that is interactive, enjoyable, and congregational. Tonight we're in the
Gospel of John, Chapter 17. So if you'd kindly
turn there, we'll pray and we'll get into the word. Let's do it, let's pray. Father, even as we've
had a meal most of us before we've gotten here, we now
sit down to a spiritual meal. We're recalling
the night when you had a meal with
your disciples, what you shared with them during that
time, and what you talked about and instructed them
while they were walking toward the
Garden of Gethsemane. And though these things
were written long ago, they have been recorded,
and you have superintended the writing of the scriptures. So that what we have deposited
to us, revealed for us, is the very word, the inherent
word of the living God. We believe that. And we believe, Lord,
that as Peter said, we have great and
precious promises. And that by these
promises we can be partakers of the divine nature. We can enter into a
spirit controlled life as we put these principles by
your spirit, by your grace, into practice in our lives. Some of us are new at this. We don't know our way around
the Bible much or Bible truths. Many of us have been
around a long time, but you have something
to teach every one of us. Because you said when we gather
like this, that you're with us, and we pray that as you
are present with the body of Christ, you, Lord,
being the head of the body, we submit ourselves to you. And we ask that you
would send the signals to all the different
parts of the body so that we might function and
operate in a smooth way that glorifies you. In Jesus' name, Amen. The occasion is the Passover. It's the annual
time when Jews would gather to celebrate
to commemorate what happened thousands of
years before in their history. When God delivered
their forefathers, a couple million of them,
from the clutches of Egypt, Pharaoh especially, who
persecuted them, and brought them through the wilderness
and gave them a new land. Every year they
gathered together, and every year they sat down
and they had a meal together. They ate the Passover lamb,
and they ate all the elements that spoke of that deliverance. And there was a
lengthy gathering that was kept by a certain order
of service known as the Seder. And Jews kept that
regularly, annually, and Jesus did so
with His disciples. Jesus knows what's
about to happen. They do not. Even though He tells them
what's going to happen, the disciples wrestle with it. They have a hard
time believing it. I'm sure they really
didn't hear the raise from the dead part of it. They just know that Jesus
said, some bad things are going to happen. And one of them is going
to be betraying them, and Peter is going
to be denying Him, and they're all in a fluster. And so after the Passover meal,
and after He washes their feet in that beautiful
servant-hood gesture, to encourage and
calm them He says, let not your heart be troubled. You believe in God,
believe also in Me. John 14:1 When it was all done,
when the meal was done, when some of the instruction
was over, it was now time to go. So at the end of Chapter
14 He says, arise and let us go from here. So the disciples along
with Jesus get up and they take a walk through
the streets of Jerusalem. Because it was
Passover in that year, it was the vernal equinox,
the moon was full. Walking through Jerusalem on
a full moon, I've done it. You get a pretty good view. And as Jesus was walking
from the Upper City down toward the Kidron Valley
and the Garden of Gethsemane where He will lead
His disciples, Jesus could look up along with
His 11 men up toward the left as they were coming
down the hill and see the gates of the temple. The gates of the temple
were enormous bronze with some gold embossing
of a vine that represented the nation of Israel. They knew the symbolism. They knew why it was there. They knew Isaiah,
Chapter 5, where the vineyard of the Lord of
hosts is the house of Israel, the men of Judah are
His pleasant plant. And so looking up at that
and being reminded of that, Jesus in Chapter 15
says, I'm the real vine. I'm the true vine. You are the branches. My Father, He's the one
who tends the vineyard. And with all of
that symbolism, He works His way through
those beautiful promises again telling them
the Holy Spirit is going to come, remind them
of the things He has said. And on into Chapter 16
more instruction as they get closer and closer toward
the Garden of Gethsemane where Jesus is going
to pray by Himself. But at the end of Chapter
16, He says, in this world you're going to
have tribulation. Not just tonight,
not just what's coming in the next few
hours, in the next few days. It's going to get bad for you. You're going to be confused. But just in this world,
in general, you're going to have tribulation. But boys, I want
you to cheer up. Be of good cheer, because
I have overcome the world. He didn't say, cheer up, boys,
you're going to bite the bullet and you're going to have to
encourage yourselves and work your way to a happy place,
maybe you, too, can overcome it. He just says, I've overcome it. I've done it for you. Now all of these great truths
you got to know they're not picking up on them. They're not understanding it. They're going to be
very, very disheartened in a short period of time. And they're going to
tailspin and forget all of these great
promises just like we do. I'm bringing it up
to encourage you so you're not the only
one that feels that way. You think, oh, man,
I've known the Bible. I've read the Bible. But you know, in
a time of crisis, in a real crunch, I
forget those things. They don't come to mind. And I tailspin and
I doubt the Lord. We are in great company. You're in the company
of Peter, and James, and John and all the rest. But then in Chapter 17,
Jesus now begins a prayer. As it opens up, it says,
"Jesus spoke these words, lifted up His eyes to
heaven and said, Father, the hour has come. Glorify Your Son that Your
Son also may glorify You. As you have given Him authority
over all flesh that He should give eternal life to
as many as you have given Him. And this is eternal life
that they may know You, the only true God, and Jesus
Christ whom You have sent. I have glorified
You on the earth. I have finished the work
which You have given Me to do. And now, O, Father, glorify
Me together with Yourself with the glory which I had
with You before the world was." All I can tell you as
I get into this prayer is we are treading
on holy ground. As Jesus begins a one on one
communication with His Father, lifting up His eyes,
lifting up His voice, He begins to talk to the Father
just hours before His death. Now this prayer has made
an impact on my life. Through the years I have
resorted to it frequently. It's like I know it by heart. I've spent a lot of time in it. I actually was so impacted
by it I wrote a little book. I don't know if they still
have it in the bookstore but it's called, "When
God Prays" put out by Tyndale House Publishing,
a little devotional on looking at the prayer life of Jesus for
instruction and encouragement in our own prayer life. But I've always
loved what John Knox, that great Scottish reformer
used to say about John 17. He said in this chapter, we
are in the Holy of Holies of the scripture itself. If this were a tabernacle or a
temple and there were courts, said John Knox, the
very Holy of Holies would be the 17th chapter. In fact, he loved it so much,
he cherished it so much, and referred to it
so often, that when he was on his deathbed that
great Scottish preacher had his wife read John
17 over and over and over until he
passed into eternity. John 17 is the Lord's Prayer. You go, wait a minute,
that's not the Lord's Prayer. I know the Lord's Prayer. Our Father who art in
heaven, hallowed be Thy name. No, that's the disciples prayer. I know your Bibles may have
a few words on top of it, a title given to it by the Bible
publishers that say the Lord's Prayer, but that's the prayer
Jesus gave to the disciples to pray. In Luke Chapter 11, Jesus was
praying in a certain place we were told. Then after He was done praying,
His disciples came to Him and they said, Lord,
teach us to pray, just like John
taught His disciples. And so Jesus said,
all right, when you pray, say our Father in
Heaven, hallowed be Your name. Your kingdom come, Your
will be done on earth as it is in heaven. You know, I know, we all
know that prayer by heart. It is sung at sporting events. It is prayed on a
number of occasions. But that is the prayer Jesus
gave His disciples to pray. This is the Lord's own prayer. This is Jesus'
prayer to His Father. It is the longest prayer
recorded that Jesus prayed. Now it doesn't mean that Jesus
didn't pray longer, trust me, He did. We know of occasions
when we are told that Jesus went off and
spent all night in prayer to the Father. He began His ministry in prayer. He continued His
ministry in prayer, and He ends His
ministry in prayer. When He's on the cross, He
prays, Father, forgive them. Lord, into Your hands
I commend my spirit. So much of what he said
on the cross was a prayer. He began, continued, and
ended His life in prayer. But this is the longest recorded
prayer of Jesus, 632 words. I love, by the way, that
the disciples came to Jesus and they had one request. They didn't say, Lord,
teach us to preach. We want to go to Your
school of ministry. Lord, teach us to walk on water. That looks so cool. I'd love to just show off to
my family when we have picnics. Lord, teach us to heal people. That would be just awesome. Isn't it interesting
that of all the things they requested Jesus
teach them, the only thing we are told they asked Him
to teach them was to pray. Why? My guess is they saw the
powerful effect of prayer in Jesus' life. They saw that's the secret. That's how He can
do what He does. That's how He can keep
going like He keeps going. That's the secret. It's that relationship
He has with the Father. But this prayer, this
632-word prayer, this is the Lord's own prayer. It brings up a question. Why does Jesus need to pray? If Jesus is God, if Jesus is the
second person of the Trinity, if Jesus is co-equal with
God the Father and God the Holy Spirit, if
Jesus is who He claimed to be, one who would
receive worship, know the thoughts of people
like He did in the gospels, claim to forgive sins, claim
equality with the Father like He so often did; if Jesus
is as Paul said Jesus was being in the form of God, or having
the very nature of God, and not thinking
equality with God was the thing to
be grasped, if that is the Jesus that we're
dealing with here, why does He need to pray? It's a good question. It's a fair question. It's a question you and I should
wrestle with and wrangle with. While Jesus was on earth, He
was in a state of submission to His Father, absolute
subjugation to the Father. He had all of the attributes
of deity in human flesh, but you have to understand
that Jesus had a unique nature. Jesus was fully God, but
He was also fully man. He wasn't God with just
kind of a make believe body that really wasn't human. It was human. The body had to develop. When you hit His hand
or He stubbed His toe, it hurt like yours does. If Jesus in the carpentry shop
were to miss with a hammer and hit His thumb, He'd
say, ouch, like you would. He wouldn't go ahhh. He was fully human. He was all there. But He was also fully
God at the same time. So Jesus has a unique
nature that we call the theanthropic nature of God. He was Theos, God, He was
anthropos, man, theanthropic. You are not. You are anthropic. God the Father is
God, Theos, but Jesus was Theos anthropos,
theanthropic, fully God, fully man. Though He was God
and proved Himself to be God on a variety of
occasions by signs and wonders, at the same time
having emptied Himself. Philippians 2 is the answer. Being in the form of God,
thinking and not robbery to be equal with God, Paul said
he emptied Himself and became obedient. He became like a bond-servant
serving the Father's will, being able to say I always
do those things that please the Father. So He lived in voluntary
subjugation, subjection, obedience to the Father having
a human nature at the same time divine. He was in submission to
the will of the Father. So that's why He could say
My Father is greater than I. Now Jesus since then
has been glorified, has ascended to heaven, is
at the right hand of God, even today, but
during His humanity, He felt the need to always be
in contact with the Father. Spending all night in prayer,
sometimes getting up very early in the morning to pray,
praying through His ministry, praying till the end. Now here's the
obvious application. If Jesus Christ thought
it important to stay in contact with His
Father often by prayer, where does that leave us? Is that something
we can just sort of toss out or bring in whenever
we feel like it's necessary. When I'm really
in trouble, that's when I'm going to go,
oh, God, or will I make it a constant priority to
be connected with the Father? If Jesus knew that
need in Himself, then you and I should also
know and experience that need. Now notice something. We're going slower
than I anticipated, I realize, but notice that
Jesus spoke these words. Notice what He does. What's the next phrase? He lifted up what? He lifted up His eyes
meaning He did this. This is a posture of prayer. It's one of the postures
the Bible speaks about when you pray,
Psalm 124, I believe, it says, I lift my
eyes up to You, to You whose throne is in heaven. The idea of lifting
up one's eyes is simply a recognition
that I'm speaking to someone who is above all, who
reigns overall, whose throne is in Heaven, who sees everything
going on on the earth and in my life. So I'm recognizing
authority by looking up. That's one of the
postures in prayer. What's interesting is
the Bible doesn't speak about closing your eyes
and folding your hands, but what do we do? Close our eyes, bow our
heads, fold our hands. The Bible speaks about
lifting your eyes. The Bible speaks about kneeling. The Bible speaks about
laying flat down, bowing before the Lord,
dancing before the Lord. And it's funny that when we
choose a posture for prayer, we decide we're going to pick
one that's not a biblical one and we'll go with that one. I would suggest you might want
to start incorporating what you actually read is a posture
for prayer in the Bible and just see how that works out. Lifting up of hands. That's a commandment
in the Bible, lifting up holy hands without
wrath and doubting Paul said. Or getting on your
knees and showing that you are humble, that you
have humility before the Lord. So Jesus lifts up His eyes. That's one of the
postures of prayer recognizing God is in heaven
on the throne overall. But something else, He also
lifted up His voice, not just His eyes. He prayed out loud. You say, Skip, how
do you know that? Well, it's recorded, right? The disciples wrote it down. They had to hear it
in order to record it. Now you might say, well,
you may be pushing it here. Jesus didn't always
pray out loud. He may have prayed
on this occasion, because He's walking
with His disciples giving them instruction. Now he wants them to hear
in an instructive way how He talks to the Father. Maybe, but I doubt it. I doubt it because when He gets
to the Garden of Gethsemane, He goes off by Himself
to pray, a stone's throw, the Bible says. And the disciples were
able to hear what He said and write that down. When Jesus said with a loud
voice, from a stone's throw they heard it. Father, if it's possible,
let this cup pass from Me. So Jesus didn't just lift up His
eyes, He lifted up His voice. He prayed aloud. I've shared with
you this before, and I'm just going
to recommend it to when you pray, pray
verbally, pray out loud, lift up your voice. And here's why. Now I know you say, well, people
are going to think I'm nuts. Well, perhaps in
the wrong context. I mean if you are taking
orders at Taco Bell, and you're talking out loud,
when you should be saying thank you, what else would you like? Would you like a Coke with that? Oh, Heavenly Father. You can freak some people out. But I guarantee you,
you can pray out loud when you're driving in your car. I see people
bopping, and weaving, and singing all the time, and
talking on their cell phone all the time out loud. I think you can pray
out loud in your car. I like to take a walk
and pray out loud. And the reason I do is
because when I pray silently, I don't know about
you, but I easily get distracted in prayer. I mean, I've caught
myself stopping in the middle of a sentence
when I pray silently and getting up and doing
something I remembered to do that I'd forgotten to do. It's amazing how
you remember things that need to be done when
you're talking to God. So you pray out loud. It's a good habit to get into. Jesus did it, and His disciples
heard it, and they recorded it. And He said, Father,
the hour has come. Isn't that a familiar phrase? It should be by now. Six times it's mentioned
in this Book alone. Jesus kept talking
about His hour. At the wedding feast
at Cana of Galilee, His mother said, hey, do
this trick, He said, woman, My hour has not yet come. They tried to seize
Him in the temple, but it said, but His
hour had not yet come. All of that, all of those,
are references to this time, this hour where He's
going to the cross. This is why He came, and that's
why it is worded this way. "Glorify Your Son that Your
Son also may glorify You. As You have given Him authority
over all flesh that He should give eternal life to as
many as You have given Him." And this, Verse 3,
"This is eternal life that they may know You, the
only true God and Jesus Christ whom You have sent." Whenever you see that
phrase, eternal life or everlasting life,
it is typically speaking of not just longevity,
not just an ongoing existence, but rather a quality of life. It's not quantity
of life, though it is that, it certainly is that. But when Jesus especially
uses the phrase, He's speaking of a quality
along with a quantity. Because, listen, everybody in
the world has eternal life. If you look at it
just as longevity. Everybody will live
forever and ever and ever. They'll never cease to exist. But I will tell you this. The quality of life from
one person to another will be vastly different. The difference
between an existence apart from God in Hell
versus with God in heaven. Well, hard to even
compare the quality. Everybody will have
longevity, thus quantity, but not everybody
will have the quality. Jesus uses the
phrase, eternal life, aionios zoe in Greek, which
means age abiding life. It's a quality that
begins now and it goes on and on and on and on. And what is eternal life? What is this age abiding life? That includes, by the way,
abundant life, John Chapter 10. I've come that you might have
life and have it abundantly. It's knowing God. It's having a relationship
with the living God through His Son Jesus Christ. "This is eternal life
that they may know You, the only true God, and Jesus
Christ whom You have sent. I have glorified
You on the earth. I have finished the work
which You have given Me to do. And now, and now, O
Father, glorify Me-- watch this-- "together
with Yourself, with the glory which I had
with You before the world was." By now, after 33
years on this earth with all that Jesus
has experienced, He is ready to go back home. It's like he can taste it. The glory that I
once had with You. Before the Philippians
2 experience of being emptied, pouring
Himself out to the last drop, there was a glory that Jesus
shared with the Father. It's something we
can only imagine. The closest I've come to it. Are the times that I have flown
into Calcutta or Bombay, India, Mumbai, India, and I visited
the slums of that city. Nothing quite like the
slums of those two cities there's a certain kind of
squalor that is in those places that I've not seen
anywhere on the earth. And the first clue that
you get is on the approach of the airplane itself. As the plane begins to
put down its landing gear, and you're in Mumbai airspace,
even from the aircraft I have smelled the
squalor on the ground. And I go, what is that smell? And I go, oh, that's the
city I'm flying into. And then to walk
through those streets and see the mud, and
the plastic sheeting, and pieces of wood
and trash that are used for little
hovels, and pieces of tend to make a roof and just
the smell and the sight, it is an assault on
all of your senses. And I remember
having this thought as I'm walking
through, this is only my experience for a
few hours, a few days. These folks live with
this day in and day out. So infinitely more,
again, you can only imagine leaving the glorious
environment of heaven to humble yourself, to
be born in a feeding trough in Bethlehem. And to grow up in Nazareth, and
to grow up in a poor family. From knowing heaven talk about
a cross cultural experience, Jesus had the ultimate. And He came down to
this earth and He lived in the environment. Not only that, but He
had to suffer through all of the rejection
of the very people He made to represent Him,
the nation of Israel, the people of the earth. He came to His own, and
His own received him not. And He's facing the cross. He knows what that's going to
be like, so He goes, O, Father, the hour has come. Glorify Me with
the glory that we had together that I shared
with you before the world was. Now He's getting in touch
with what it's going to be like to go back home. That's His prayer. By the way, here's
just a thought. Jesus has a few
hours to live, right? And now He's praying
to the Father. It's the longest
recorded prayer. What does the Son of God
have to say to His Father in the last hours of His life? What is so important that
would be on His heart, because I think that's a
very important thing to note. Because I would ask
you, if you knew you had a few hours to live what
would you be asking God for? What would you be praying for? I know, honestly, if I know I'm
going to die in a few hours, I might be praying,
Lord, get me out of this. Your guts, stop
this from happening. Deliver me from this hour
of suffering in pain. What's on Jesus' mind, what's
on Jesus' heart, what comes from His lips are three things. He prays for Himself. You just read it,
Verses 1 through 5. He then prays for His disciples,
His closest followers, versus 6 through 19. And then He prays for you. Verse 20 through 26 that's
how the prayer is outlined. So in this hour of need
Jesus prays for Himself, and He prays that
the glory would be restored, the glory that
He once had with the Father before the world was. Now, I'm going to ask you
a rhetorical question, and I might even
say a dumb question. Was Jesus' prayer
answered by the Father? Of course it was. When Paul wrote the book
of Philippians and said, He humbled Himself, He emptied
Himself, He became a man, became a bond-servant
wherefore-- right after that-- God has
highly exalted Him and given Him the name that
is above every name, that at the name of
Jesus, every knee will bow and every tongue will confess. God has done that Paul said. So when Stephen is
dying the martyrs death, and the stones are pelting
his body, just before he dies remember what he said? He goes, look, I
see heaven opened and Jesus standing at
the right hand of God. He saw him in his exalted place. His prayer was answered. Now he prays for His own. "I have manifested Your
name to the men whom You have given Me out of the world. They were Yours, and
You gave them to Me, and they have kept Your word. Did you see how that's phrased? Have you ever
thought of yourself as a love gift given by God
the Father to Jesus the Son? Father, you have
given them to Me. When you received
Christ, what happened? I know what you're going to say. You're going to say, well,
when I received Christ, I gave my life to Jesus. True, you did. But something else
happened at the moment you gave your life to
Jesus, the father gave you to Jesus as a love gift. He said Skip belongs
to You, Jesus. You paid the price, he's Yours. He's my gift to You. I want to share that,
because have you ever had people scorn you, and they
think who do you think you are? What do you think you are,
God's gift to the world? You answer them and
tell them, no, I don't think I'm God's
gift to the world, but I know that I'm
God's gift to Jesus. Now they're going to look
at you like you think you're something you're not. But that is the
truth, Baby Ruth. God gave you to
Jesus as a love gift. Now what we're
getting into here, and I don't want to belabor
it because we've done it on a number of
occasions, but we're getting into the divine
mysteries of sovereign election and divine predestination
versus human volition. You know what that means, right? Where God has selected
you, chosen you in Christ before the foundation
of the world. But at the same time you
had something to do with it. You weren't an innocent
bystander just being swept up. You chose to follow Jesus. Salvation is a combination
of God's pre-choice and your choice in real time. He chose you in Christ before
the foundation of the world. John 15, remember
what Jesus said? You didn't choose
Me, but I chose You even though we read that
they chose to follow Him. They made the decision to leave
their nets and follow Jesus. It was their choice. Let me just-- without
getting too much in depth, and losing our time altogether-- you will find that
the Lord Jesus will often in even a
verse, one verse, combine both truths
that you are picked before the foundation
of the world and that you chose
to follow Christ. You'll have references where the
Bible gives the command repent and believe the gospel. Or come to Me all you who
labor and are heavy laden, or if any man thirst, let
him come to Me and drink. He who believes in Me out
of his innermost being will flow rivers
of living water. All of those are appeals
to your personal choice, your human volition. At the same time, and
sometimes in the same verse, it will say that God picked you. God gave you to the Son. It was all pre-done,
prearranged. And so you kind of want
to scratch your head or find somebody to argue with. Let me just suggest that
you don't, because we've got enough of that going on. The Calvinist will put all of
his eggs on that God chose you, your sovereignly
predestined and pre-elected. The Armenian will
put all of his eggs on you have to make a choice
and it's your decision. And the thing is, both are true. And can I just say what
Jesus sought to harmonize we dare not polarize. What God has joined together
as the preacher says at the wedding, let
no man separate. And both of those
truths are truths. He's selected you before you are
a twinkle in your daddy's eye. But then, there
came a time where God appealed to your choice,
and you said yes to Him, and both are evident
in the scripture. So you can argue with it,
you can wrangle over it, can I just suggest
you start enjoying it? I remember being in school
when they picked teams, and I was always, almost
always, the last person people want to pick. I wasn't like star athlete. Oh, Skip's on my team. It's like they'll get
to me, but they'll get all the good guys first. What I am told in the
Bible over and over again is that he picked me
and you to be on His team. And I read the end of the book
by the way, His team wins. So I'm just going to enjoy it. If you want to wrangle over it
and argue about it, have fun. Just don't bring me into it. I'd rather enjoy it while you
argue about it, how's that? "Now they have known," Verse
7, "that all things which You have given Me are from You. For I have given to them the
words which You have given Me. And they have received
them, and have known surely that I came forth from You, and
they believe that You sent me." Jesus said, I gave
them Your words. And I always feel
that that is what spiritual leaders, pastors,
need to do, give God's word. Skip, why do you always
have a Bible study when you have a meeting at Calvary? Because Romans 10, faith
comes by hearing and hearing by the word of God. You want to grow in your faith? If you want to
grow in your faith, don't close your Bible
and pray for faith. You open your Bible
and develop your faith. That's how it comes. The more you expose yourself
to it and by God's grace implement it, you'll be
changed from glory to glory. So we receive His words. He says Verse 9,
"I pray for them. I do not pray for the world,
but for those whom You have given me for they are Yours. And all Mine are Yours
and Yours are Mine, and I am glorified in them. I am no longer in the world,
but these are in the world, and I come to You, Holy
Father, keep through Your name those whom You have
given Me that they may be one as We are one. 209 times in your New Testament,
209 and the little phrase, the world is used. The world. In this passage in nine
verses of this passage, it's used 12 times Jesus
refers to the world, you're in the world
but not of the world. I've taken you out of the world. I'm sending you
out to the world. He uses this term, the world. What does that mean? It's the word cosmos in Greek. Cosmos, we get the
word cosmology from it. But there's a few different
ways to look at the world. There's only one way
He's referring to it. Let me explain. Sometimes the Bible speaks of
the world of creation, right? God created the world. The earth is the Lord's the
Psalm has said, Psalm 24, and the fullness
thereof, the world and all who dwell therein. He's speaking of the world
of the earth, creation, the universe. Well, that is not
how it's used here. He's not speaking up,
because the Bible says do not love the world,
neither the things that are in the world. So he's not saying, don't
love your environment. Hate the plant when
you go outside. Look at that tree and
hate it, don't love it. That's not what
it refers to when it says don't love the world. That's one way, the
environment, the physical world. Sometimes the Bible refers
to the world as the world of humanity, the world of men. And when Jesus said,
or John 3:16, for God so loved the world,
He was speaking of people of the world. Jesus didn't die
for trees and fish. He died for the
humans of this world. God so loved the world. So when the Bible
says, don't you love the world, He's not
saying don't love people. Don't love the
environment, don't love people, whatever you do. Now that would be
contrary to the gospel. There's a third way, and
it is the most frequent use of that phrase of
the world or cosmos. And it's very evident here. And that is the ordered
system of worldly thinking and values around you. That's how it is used. The word cosmos means
an arranged order. So the world is
the arranged order where Satan is called
the God of this world. And there are human beings that
are a part of the system that don't love God, that hate God,
that don't love Christians, that don't love godly values. That is the world you
and I are in and are not to love, right, that system. So we are living in a
physical world surrounded by a human world that is imbued
with a spiritual world view. OK, so for example,
we used to have a-- I don't even know if they
have it on TV anymore-- The Wide World of Sports. Is that still a show? OK, so that's like decades ago. But it doesn't mean there is a
planet out in the galaxy that is called Sports that is
revolving around the sun, it's its own world. Now I know a lot of men
would love to go to a planet like that but-- it just means that it is
an arranged system of sport values, and people
who love them, and activities that are
arranged around them. So when Jesus
speaks of the world, I've taken you out of the world,
it's out of that world system. I've delivered you from
that way of thinking, that way of living. Let's read down to
Verse 14, Verse 12, "While I was with
them in the world, I kept them in Your name. Those whom You gave Me, I kept. None of them is lost except
the son of perdition," that's Judas Iscariot, "that the
scripture might be fulfilled. You But now I come 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." That is the occupational
hazard of following Jesus. Every occupation
has its hazards. If you work on
telephone poles, there's the hazard of getting splinters,
or falling down, or getting electrocuted. Every occupation
has its had hazards. The occupational hazard of being
a Christian, of following Jesus Christ, is that the
world system around you isn't going to like you. They're going to hate you, and
you're going to be persecuted. What does Jesus pray for them? He says, Verse
15, "I do not pray that You should take
them out of the world, but that You should keep
them from the evil one. They are not of the world
just as I am not of the world. Sanctify them by Your truth. Your word is truth." Please, please, please
notice that Jesus does not pray a prayer of escapism. He didn't say, Father,
the world's bad, You and I both know
it, and they're going to find it
out soon enough. And it's so bad,
Father, they're going to need a cave to
hide in, and a place to store their canned
goods and their ammunition, and their whale blubber to
keep them warm in cold nights, because the world's
out to get them. He doesn't pray that they
would escape from the world. In fact, he says, I took
you out of the world but I must send you--
notice, he says, I send them right back into the world. "They are not of the world
even as I am not of the world. Sanctify them by Your truth. Your word is truth." Look at Verse 18, "As you
sent Me into the world, I also have sent them
into the world." " Now compare what you
just read in that verse. Verse 18 with Verse 6. Verse 6, "I have manifested
Your name to them, to the men You gave me out of the world. They were Yours. You gave them to Me, and
they've kept Your word. Now he says, "As you
sent Me into the world, I also sent them
into the world." Here's how it works. Jesus saves you out
of the world system. He saves you out of the mess. He cleans the mess off
around you and in you. Then He shoves you
back into the mess. I send them back into the world. You go, that's not very nice. Oh, it's actually very nice. It's very nice because how else
are those other world-lings, those people out there
going to know the Savior unless through your life
that He sends you into? So He'll take you
out of the world clean you up, get
rid of the mess, send you back into the mess,
but this time with a message. And when you speak the message
to the people in the mess, it's incentive for them
to get out of their mess, and get cleaned up, and get
a message and go back in. It's just trickle
down evangelism. That's just how it
worked from the time of Jesus all the way on. So our relationship
with the world is that the world needs us. But let me throw
something else at you. You need the world. Years ago when codfish as
an industry in the Pacific Northwest was getting
big and people wanted to export it
all over the country, they decided that they
would take and kill the fish of course and
then freeze the fish and then send it
to the locations. The problem is that
cod is a delicate fish, and it loses a lot of its flavor
when it's frozen and shipped. So they tried something else. They took the
codfish and sent it alive in tanks by itself
in saltwater, seawater, and preserved it. Then they killed it and
served it on the plates. The problem with that,
is the fish by the time they got to market were
mushy and not firm. Finally, they figured
out what was wrong, and they started shipping
containers of codfish and put in the tanks it's
natural enemy the catfish. So that those poor
little codfish were being chased by their enemy
the catfish all across country from the Pacific Northwest
to whatever restaurant they landed into. That kept them firm and tasty. Here's my point. If you are in the world,
but not in the word, you're going to
become like the world. But if you are in the
word and not in the world, you're just going to
get fat and sassy. You'll be mushy. You need a little
bit of chasing. You need a little
bit of resistance. You need a little
bit of challenge. And that's why
when you go, man, I don't know why God
would give me this job. That boss hates Christians. And I remember thinking that,
because I had a lot of them. They seemed to attack me. They were my catfish. And I tell you what, it
strengthened my faith and made my witness bold,
and my thinking clear, and my rebuttals pure. And so the world needs you,
but in a sense you need them. You can't just be isolated. But you see, that
has been the tendency of Christians for years. One of the responses of
believers to the world has been to isolate. The monastic movement
started this way. Let's isolate Christians from
the world, from worldly people, from a worldly environment. Let's get them alone. Let's get them in a monastery. Let's just in a nice
place where they can sing nice songs together,
and hear pleasant things together, and they
don't ever have to go back out into the world. And I've even met
Christians go, I'd love to live in a Christian
city or a Christian neighborhood where every single
neighbor loves Jesus. I say, I think you
just described heaven if I'm not mistaken. That's what you're
going to get in heaven. That's not the earth. You need to get chased
around a little bit. You don't need to isolate. A second response Christians
have had through the years is to insulate, to insulate. Now this was the approach
of the Pharisees. Did you know when a
Pharisee walked down the streets in Jerusalem they
would hold their robes tight to them. They would put their heads
down, so they wouldn't have to look at a pagan. They didn't want to get cooties. They didn't want to get defiled. They just walked and
held their robes tight and rushed through the streets. They were insulated. They didn't do
evangelism, of course, there's nothing to attract
an unbeliever to that. And they mocked people
who did evangelism. Your Master eats with tax
collectors and sinners. I can't believe He hangs
out with those people. Well, like codfish got to
hang out with the catfish, because in a spiritual
economy that's how catfish can be converted into codfish. So he hung out with tax
collectors and sinners. So to isolate and to insulate
are not good approaches to the worldly
system around you. A third approach many of us
have tried is to vegetate. I see this too often. This is a believer who's
just completely apathetic. People are going
to hell every day. At least I'm not. There's no passion to share
their faith with the lost at all. They may not be
isolated or insulated, but they have vegetated. They're like spiritual
couch potatoes. There's another response
that I find troubling and that is to
imitate the world. Be just like them. Try to prove to worldly
people that I'm just as cool as you are. Look, man, I'm as hep as you
are as if your hepness is going to attract them to salvation. If there's no difference between
an unbeliever and a Christian, why do they need to convert? What are they converting to? There's no difference. So clearly, the solution is not
to isolate, insulate, vegetate, or imitate. Jesus' solution is to permeate. I'm going to take
you out of the world, clean you up, tale the mess off
you and around from your soul, and put you back into it so
that you permeate the world. Isn't that what Jesus said? You are the salt of
the earth and salt was used to decontaminate
meat in those days. Well, the salt has
to touch the meat, has to touch the contamination
to kill the germs. So that's His plan. I send you out and
Jesus said like sheep in the midst of wolves. But I'm looking at a few
ex-wolves here tonight who are now God's sheep, because
others were sent into your life and at the boldness
to stay decontaminated and to preach truth to you. That's Jesus' style. And for their sakes, Verse
19, "I sanctify myself that they may also be
sanctified by the truth." Now Verso 20, we're going to
finish this up to the end. Jesus prays for you. "I do not pray for these alone." That is, these disciples, these
immediate followers, but also for those who will believe
in me through their word. That's you and I. We're
reading the testimony of one of those close
followers tonight. They wrote Matthew,
and they wrote John, and they will write first
Peter, second Peter, first John, second John, third John. They'll give their testimony
and the gospel baton will be passed down. He is praying for you. Jesus was praying for you then. Do you know Jesus is
praying for you now? Do you know that Jesus'
work is not finished. You go that's heresy, Skip. No, it's not heresy. The cross, He's
finished with that work, but He has a second
work He's doing. It's called the work
of intercession. Hebrews Chapter 7, He ever lives
to make intercession for you. I just want you to think
that Jesus prays for you. I want you to think about that. I remember the evening I was
speaking in North Carolina, and that afternoon
I had the privilege of having a meal at Dr.
Billy Graham's house. And he said, hey, listen,
before you go speak, I want to pray for you
and your message tonight. So he prayed. And I'm thinking this to myself. Billy Graham is praying for me. This is going to be awesome. Cause if he prays, you know
it's going to be awesome. That's what I'm thinking. And it was as if the Lord
said. well, do I count? Man, I live to pray for you. It's what I live for. To pray for you, and you,
and you, and by name, before the Father. He ever lives now at the right
hand of God to represent you and to pray for you. He prayed for you then. He's praying for you now. He worked for you then. He's working for you now. "That they may all be one,"
Verse 21, "as you, Father, are in Me, and I in You, that
they also may be one in Us. That the world may
believe that You sent me. And the glory
which You gave Me I have given them, that they
may be one just as We are One. I in them, You in Me, that they
may be made perfect in one. And that the world may
know that you have sent Me and have loved them
as you have love Me." Now Jesus looks toward the
future and He prays for us. He prays that we will be
unified, we will be one. It's tempting to
read this and to sort of cock our head a
little bit and go, wow, now there's a prayer
of Jesus that I don't think was answered. Because if I'm not mistaken
I've read my Bible and even those disciples got
into arguments a lot. They were arguing who was going
to be the greatest so I'll check that off as being
evidence against the answer of this prayer. Also, I recall that guys
like Paul and Barnabas were at each other's
throat in the book of Acts. And the argument got
so strong they had to part each other's company. They couldn't even hang
out with each other. They had to break
fellowship with each other. And I've looked around at all
the different denominations and hear how Christians talk
smack about each other from one town to the next, so
where's the unity? Where's the love, Bro? Here's what I want you to know. Unity isn't something
you produce, it's something you already have. Whether you enjoy it
or not, you've got it. In Galatians, Chapter 3,
Paul writes that there is neither Jew nor Greek. There is neither slave nor free. There is neither
male nor female. We are all one in Christ. He says it is a fact whether you
know it, experience it or not, I've done it. I've done it. It's a done fact,
Ephesians, Chapter 4, there is one body, one
spirit, one Lord, one faith, one baptism. That's unity. Unity does not mean uniformity. It doesn't mean we're all
going to agree on everything. Oh, there's no unity. We actually think differently. That's what humans do. If you get two people
that think alike about everything
[INAUDIBLE] thinking. We have differing opinions. We don't all have to
think the same things. There's room for disagreement. I would dare say that all of the
cardinal doctrines of the faith you and I agree on. OK, there may be certain
things about eschatology or new mythology we have difference
of opinion on, but we're one. So it's a done deal. It's a fact. But having said
that, it is something we should be endeavoring
to keep the Bible says. Again, Ephesians 4
endeavored to keep the unity of the spirit
in the bond of peace. So it's something we
shouldn't be working against. We should actually be
trying to reconcile, trying to build bridges to
people and not separate people. We should be endeavoring to
keep the unity of the spirit. Why? Because then the world
will know that you sent Me. And as Jesus prays
for them, He's thinking of the impact
of those future believers on the world around them. And He knows if there
is a unity among them, that it will make the church
attractive to the unbeliever. A church in turmoil,
what unbeliever wants to go visit that? Oh, they fight all the time. I'm going to go there. Awesome, I just love conflict. Then to close off the
prayer, one minute left. "Father, I desire that
they also whom you gave me may be with me where I am." That's heaven. That's the Father's house. That's where He's going. "That they may behold my
glory which you have given Me. For you loved me before the
foundation of the world, oh righteous Father. The world has not known
You, but I have known You. And these have known
that you sent Me. And I have declared
to them Your name and will declare it that the
love with which you loved Me may be in them and I in them." He prays for unity and
then He prays for glory. Not for Himself, but he's
praying for glory for you, that you will be
in heaven with Him. Every time a believer dies,
Jesus' prayer is answered. It's one more in the
very presence of God enjoying His presence,
seeing His glory. That's why I make a point
at every funeral saying, this person, the last
breaths she took on earth, the first breath
she took in heaven. It was something like this, wow. Because I'm beholding
the glory that Jesus had with the Father from before
the world was and it's awesome. Interesting that He prays
about heaven after He prays for unity on earth. And here's what I think. Here's the correlation. When we lose our
focus of heaven, we start fighting on earth. When we keep our
focus on heaven, it balances out all the
disagreements we have on earth. It tends to take the sting
away from the battle, because I look at you,
I go, you know what? I'm going to have to
spend forever with you. That's a long time. I mean, you're going to
be sharing heaven with me. I'm like run into
you walking down one of the streets
of heaven, I want to try to get
along with you now. I know I'm going to be perfect
and redeemed and so are you, but I want to endeavor to
keep [INAUDIBLE] spirit now. So I'm thinking of heaven
but I'm also thinking that I want to work this out. I think they go hand-in-hand. "And I have declared
to them Your name and will declare it that the
love with which You loved Me may be in them and I in them." Father, we thank You that 2,000
years ago, the Savior that we worship was thinking about us. He was praying for His
men, His disciples. He was thinking of what
would lay ahead of them. He knew their tendency would be
to go up into that upper room and lock the door and
live there forever. But he wanted them out,
and He would send them out, like salt out of
the salt shaker, like sheep in the
midst of wolves. But He prayed that
you would keep us from the clutches
of the evil one. So Lord, as you send us out the
rest of this week with friends and with family, people we
work with, people that we think are obnoxious to us. I pray, Lord, that you would
help us to reach out to them. And through the difficulty
strengthen our own fiber lest we get flabby
and overfed, and not exercised in righteousness
and godliness before the eyes of this
corrupt generation. Lord, we're humbled that
while we're praying for You or praying to You through
the name of Jesus, is that Jesus is at the right
hand, your right hand right now praying for us,
daily interceding for us, thinking about us. It's staggering, Lord. It's breathtaking. Your love is so deep,
your care so meticulous, that after trotting this
holy ground all we can do is humbly bow. But at the same
time, like Jesus, lift our eyes toward
heaven, the place we will one day be with
You in glory to behold you face to face. Get us ready, Lord, for that. Help us to get along
with each other now to endeavor to keep the unity
of the spirit in that bond of peace with our
eyes toward heaven, our feet on the
earth in Jesus' name. Amen.
