John 17:6-19: A Prayer for Disciples

The sermon text comes from the Gospel of John, chapter 17.

John 17 · chapter mention

This morning we will be reading verses 6 through 19.

Before I read the text, I'd like to read that last line that we sang.

Last week we started this new sermon series in John 17, the high priestly prayer of Jesus.

And what I want to say is this.

I think it's easier for us to maybe understand how the Father glorifies the Son, how the Son glorifies the Father, because they're deity.

I think what we struggle with, maybe some ways more, is that last line we sang.

O great God of highest heaven, glorify your name through me.

You know that's true.

You know that he really does want to glorify himself through you.

I think that the struggle we have is knowing ourselves as we do.

How oftentimes we don't have the faith that we ought.

We know the things that get in the way.

Do we really believe that God can be glorified through you and through me?

That's why we're here this morning.

We're asking the Holy Spirit to teach us and to convince us of these things.

As I said, this was the high priestly prayer of Jesus.

This is the longest prayer of Jesus recorded.

And we get the privilege of listening in.

Even his disciples.

In this passage printed in the bulletin today, this is Jesus' specific prayer for his disciples, his apostles.

There are many applications for us.

And we're going to see that next week in the last section of this chapter.

But don't tune out what he has to say about his disciples, because there's much for us this morning as well.

Remember, this is hours before his death.

And this is what was on his mind.

Jesus speaking, praying, 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'm 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'm no longer in the world, but they are in the world, and I'm coming to you.

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

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

I have guarded them, and not one of them has been lost except the Son of Destruction, that the Scripture might be fulfilled.

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

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

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

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

Sanctify them in the truth.

Your word is truth.

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

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

This is the reading of God's holy, precious word.

May we pray for the Spirit's help.

Father, thank you.

Thank you for having recorded this precious prayer between you and your Son by your Holy Spirit inscription for our benefit.

Holy Spirit, teach us this morning.

Do a new fresh work of grace in our hearts this morning.

We pray.

Amen.

The Lord's prayer, Jesus' prayer.

We noted last week that he used five verses to pray for himself.

He knew he needed to pray for himself embarking on this mission that he knew within hours would take him to a cross to be crucified.

But then he spends more time praying for his disciples.

He prays more time praying for his future followers like us.

And we have a lot to learn.

I think I heard I read one time in a book by Tim Keller.

Tim said, every once in a while I'm in a room with other people praying, and all of a sudden I feel like I don't know how to pray.

I think that's kind of like when we're listening to Jesus pray.

One of my goals as your pastor is that for each of us, our prayer life will change through this sermon series.

As we really believe and take in the way that Jesus, our great high priest, prays for us.

To listen into his prayer, to learn from his prayer.

It's an amazing prayer.

One of the old Puritans said it like this: This prayer is a transcript of the present intercession of Jesus for the whole church.

It's Hebrews 7.25 that I read from a few moments ago.

Whoever lives to make intercession for his people.

The work of salvation has been completed by Jesus.

The work of intercession goes on with Jesus.

There's not a time when you pray that you pray alone.

I don't care if you're the only one in the room, you never pray alone if you're a Christian.

Jesus is praying with you and for you.

And as we heard read earlier this morning in Romans, the Holy Spirit, the other advocate, prays with you and for you.

Friends, take that in.

With that kind of divine empowerment, it ought to be an incentive for us to pray more faithfully, more boldly.

Right?

It's not just you.

It's not just me.

You find that sometimes your prayer life really kind of shrivels up if you haven't really been communing with the Lord.

You haven't been in the Word, you haven't really been praying.

Oh, I don't know if He's going to even hear me.

I don't know if He's even listening now.

He's probably tuned me out.

No.

For every child of God, Jesus says, I am here praying with you and praying for you and praying for the things that you don't even know what to pray for with the Holy Spirit.

Now that could be a sermon in itself, right?

I mean, we could just think about this.

This is true.

Do we believe this?

Imagine the impact on the disciples as they listen in to this high priestly prayer.

By the way, the first few verses, he's not even praying, he's not making petitions for the disciples.

He is having a very intimate conversation with his Heavenly Father.

We get to listen in.

Those are the first verses.

Right out of the gate, four things, verse six.

First, he thanks them that they were God's people.

And hang in there for a second because this is a little nuanced.

First and foremost, you were God's the fathers.

Secondly, he gave you to Jesus as a gift.

Did you know that?

He gave you as a gift.

Seven times we read this reference to the gift.

Well, who or what is the gift?

You are.

Did you know that?

You are God's most precious gift to his son Jesus.

Thirdly, he says Jesus has made God known to them, the disciples, and us.

Otherwise, we would not be here today.

Otherwise, we would not know this, except that Jesus gave us his word.

Fourthly, that they have received, they've kept his revelation.

You might get tripped up by that.

You might think, well, wait a minute.

You know, the gospels are full of the disciples' mistakes.

I mean, did they really keep the revelation?

They did.

And Christian, you do.

Perfectly know.

Do we mess up?

Yes, we mess up.

But I'll tell you this: the moment you came to spiritual life, the moment that the Holy Spirit regenerated your heart, He gave you the gift of, we just sang it, ears to hear that we didn't have before, a mind to understand.

He gave us new hearts.

We've been washed by the blood of Jesus.

And we do believe the word of God.

That's what he's saying.

Martin Luther in one of his table talks said we must make a great difference between God's word and the word of man.

A man's word is a little sound that flees, flies into the air, and it soon vanishes.

But the word of God is greater than heaven and earth, for it forms part of the very power of God and it endures forever.

Amen.

That's why this is powerful what we're doing right now.

I'm proclaiming the word of God.

And the Spirit of God is taking the word that's being preached and takes it into our hearts.

So we understand, so we believe, so we open ourselves up to what he wants to do.

Jesus' words are God's words.

He's saying that too.

Think about that.

Jesus is saying every word I spoke on earth came from my Father.

He was that dependent on his Father.

That's why we talked about last week in the sermon.

Why do we think we can do things on our own?

Jesus was the most dependent person who ever lived on this earth.

We ought to learn from him.

That's why we get up in the morning.

That's why we open the Word of God in the morning.

That's why we say, Father, direct me.

This is your day, not mine.

What are my assignments, Father?

Would you give me your assignments for me?

Yeah.

The words that the Father has given me, the words that the Father gives you through his Spirit, His Word.

There are some startling words in this text.

Startling words.

All mine are yours.

Do you know who the mine is?

You.

All yours are mine.

And I am glorified in them.

I'm going to read some quotes from Dr.

Spurgeon that I've been soaking in this week.

I thought I would share them with you.

A Christian woman or man is the noblest work of God.

God has reached the fullness of his power and his grace in making us to be one with his own dear Son.

And so bringing us into union and communion with himself.

Oh, if the words that I speak could convey to you the fullness of their meaning, you might right now spring to your feet, electrified with holy joy to think of this, that we should be Christ and the Fathers, that we should be thought worthy to be the object of the intricate transactions and intercommunions of the dearest kind between the Father and the Son.

Well, I could just chew on that all day.

We sinners who are but dust and ashes at our very best are favored as angels never were.

Therefore, let all praise be ascribed to God's sovereign grace.

Amen.

Dear brother, dear sister, you have never had yet half the idea how precious you are to Christ.

You think because you are so imperfect and mess up so much that you fall so much below your own ideals that therefore he could not possibly love you much.

You think you cannot do so.

Have you ever measured the depth of Christ's love for you at Gethsemane at Calvary?

If you have tried to do so, you will be quite sure that apart from anything in you or about you, He loves you with a knowledge that passes all understanding.

Believe it.

But I don't love him as I should, you say.

No, you don't.

And you never will unless you first learn how much he loves you.

Isn't that really maybe the biggest problem?

That do we really know how to receive his love for us?

Isn't that our biggest problem?

And it only happens as the Holy Spirit makes it clear and real to us.

You don't just figure that out on your own, is what he's saying.

Only the Holy Spirit can convince you of this kind of love.

And don't waste your breath.

You can't convince anybody else either.

As hard as we try at times, only the Holy Spirit can do this.

Spurgeon goes on to say, believe it.

Believe it to the highest degree that he so loves you that when there is no one else with him to commune with him but the Father, even in their conversation, it is about their mutual estimate of how much they love you.

It's like, stop.

Is this true?

Yes, this is the prayer.

You know the worship service is planned as a whole, right?

We've already been on this message, this worship service from the very first on.

Worship is a conversation we have with God.

Have these truths been sinking in, capturing your attention?

Spurgeon, these high secret talks between the Father and the Son are not about a few Christian saints who have reached that higher life.

You know, the people that you think of as super spiritual Christians.

But this is about all of us who belong to Him.

Jesus bears all of us on his heart as our high priest.

Do you struggle with that?

Do you struggle thinking, okay, Tom, I get this?

There are some people who are so committed to Jesus and their lives so exemplify their love for him.

I get it.

That's how he feels about them.

But not me.

Not me.

Christian, you could not be more wrong.

And one of the problems you may have is trying to see through the prism of your own life and experience, his heart and his love.

We have to learn how to see it through his eyes.

You're not going to see it just through your eyes.

If you look at it through your eyes, you're going to always find yourself unworthy.

You're going to always say, well, no, this is not true about me.

That the Father and the Son had these intimate conversations about how much they love you and me.

All mine or yours, all yours or mine?

Did you know this was in the Bible?

I'm serious.

Did you know this?

How quickly we forget this.

Man.

Spurgeon, the silver and the gold are his, the cattle and a thousand hills.

All things are of God, of him and by him and through him, and to him are all things.

Yet he reckons them not to be compared with his people.

You know, dearly beloved, how much you value your children more than you do anything else.

If there was a fire in your house tonight and you could only carry out one thing, you would not hesitate for a moment to decide it would be your children.

You would carry your children and let everything else be consumed by the flames.

And so it is with God.

He cares for his people beyond everything else.

Parents, you know how much you love your kids.

How much more?

The Heavenly Father loves you.

I want to remark one more thing he says concerning these notes of possession.

They occur in the private conversation between the Father and the Son.

It is our Lord's Prayer when He is in the inner sanctuary speaking with his Father, that we have these amazing words.

All mine are yours, and yours are mine.

It's not to you and to me that he's talking now.

The Son of God is speaking with his father when they are very close, intimately communing with one another.

Now, what does this say to me, but that the Father and the Son so greatly value and love us?

What people talk about when they are alone is very special.

Not when they're with crowds and other people.

When two people who love each other very much are alone, you hear the most intimate thoughts that they have.

Here is the Son speaking to the Father, not about thrones and royalties, not about cherubim and seraphim, but about poor men and women.

They're talking about these people, about how much they love these people.

You know, there's a big part of me that says, Tom, just stop right now.

Right?

There's enough meat on these bones to chew for a long time.

I'm not gonna stop.

But I hope you, I hope, I hope you find yourself meditating much on these truths this week.

Jesus goes on to pray.

Some other petitions.

His second petition, verse 11 Holy Father, keep them in your Name which you have given me that they may be one even as we are one.

Protect them.

Jesus is asking the Father to protect his followers by using the same power that the Father used to protect Jesus.

Incredible.

God the Father was the protector of the Son.

Every moment on earth.

God the Father is your protector every moment on earth for you.

Oh, that we would believe that.

He prays for their protection.

He also prays for their joy, that they may have my joy.

Well, who's the my referring to?

Jesus.

Jesus was full of joy.

We're not.

But he is.

And listen to what he's praying.

Father, I want my joyless people.

Are you filled with joy?

We get grumpy.

We get down.

We get critical.

Listen to what the Bible says about joy.

The verb rejoices you 72 times in the New Testament.

The noun joy is used another 60 times.

Remember that occasion in Luke chapter 10 when Jesus sent the 72 out to minister in his name.

Luke 10 · chapter mention

He gave them his authority and they went and they had a powerful ministry experience.

Demons submitted to them, people were saved, people were healed, and they came back so excited.

And Jesus looked them right in the eye and he said, People, rejoice not that the spirits submit to you, but rejoice that your names are written in heaven.

Wow.

That's where we find our joy.

Stop looking for your joy in your productivity.

Stop looking for your joy in the list that you complete.

Stop looking for your joy in the things that you accomplish.

If you're looking for real joy, you're going to find it to know that your name is written in God's book.

And as we've already said, how much He loves you will bring you real joy.

And it won't just go and vanish over circumstances so quickly.

What a prayer.

Jesus, give me joy.

Can you pray that this morning?

Jesus, give me joy that I am yours.

You are mine, and that cannot be lost.

No one can take that from us.

And then he prays in verse 15, keep them from the evil one.

You see the similarities between the other Lord's Prayer.

Keep them from the evil one.

Deliver us from evil.

We need a prayer warrior like Jesus to protect us from evil.

There's not a person in this room who has a clue how much evil you could have gotten into if Jesus wasn't praying for you, including me.

We hardly know when we do brush up against evil and we do evil, we hardly know how much Jesus has protected us from.

All praise be to God.

How he protects us.

He protects us from the things that we know, he protects us from the things that we don't know.

None of us have a clue how far differently our lives could have gone or could be if he took off of us his hand of protection.

Thank you, Jesus.

Thank you, Jesus, for protecting us from what we don't even know.

But we do know that what he's protected us from, most of all, is what?

Hell.

Eternal punishment.

Because he completed his mission, you, Christian, will never experience his wrath.

You, Christian, will never experience the power, the full force of the evil one.

You never will.

Sometimes it might feel like it.

But you know why you will never experience the full vent of God's wrath on you?

Because his son did on the cross.

Because his son took the full fury of the Father, his righteous indignation for our sin.

You never will.

And that's what the Son has protected us from.

Praise God.

The last petition, sanctify them in the truth.

Sanctify them in the truth.

You cannot be a communion growing Christian if you're not in God's word.

You must be in God's word to know these truths, to be reminded of these truths.

You take this book and you open it every day.

And you say, God, would you open your word to me that I might understand what I don't understand?

That I might believe what I have a hard time believing.

You gave me your word, you've given me your son, you've given me your Holy Spirit.

And watch what He'll do in your life.

Watch the joy come in.

The assignments that he has for you.

We talked about that last week.

Archipists.

Remember Archipus?

Complete the work that God gave you to do.

Okay?

You're Archipist.

I'm Archipist.

How would I know?

How would I know the work that he's given me to do, except that I'm communing with him?

I'm in relationship with him.

I'm talking to him.

And he speaks to me through his word, and by his spirit, Lord, what is it?

Yes.

But we have to be in the word.

We have to be in the word.

And we have to be able to submit to the Spirit to guide us, to direct us.

Sanctify them in the truth.

Oh, may we wash in the truth this week.

May the truth wash over us this week.

But there's something else as we close that's just as astonishing.

Verse 19.

Now remember, he's praying to the Father.

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

I get why I should consecrate myself, given all that he's done for me.

But why would Jesus consecrate himself?

Oh, with our sanctified imagination as much as we can, when Jesus left heaven in the glories of heaven, when he said farewell to the Father, to go on the mission he was given.

So that he might die, that his blood would be spilt, that his life would be ended, so that he could have you as his gift.

Incredible.

Incredible.

Jesus said, I will consecrate myself.

I will set myself apart for this mission.

I will do everything necessary to go on this mission.

I will do everything necessary to complete this mission.

That's what he's done for us.

What about you and me?

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

Yes, first and foremost, his disciples, the apostles, but you as well.

Have you consecrated yourself to Jesus?

You might say, well, I think I did it in junior high.

At a camp.

Or I think I did it years ago, I think, I think at a church service.

Okay.

Jesus is looking for fresh consecrations.

That may be why you're here this morning.

You may be here this morning because you know that the Spirit of God is saying to you, it's time to reconsecrate yourself to these noble purposes.

I can't tell you the year or the date, but I can tell you in my mind it's as vivid as it happened yesterday.

It was in my first congregation in Abingdon, Virginia.

In my office, as I was studying the Word of God, and I came across these verses in 2 Timothy as though I had never read them before.

I know I had.

I'd read a lot of Bible my day.

But these words just rang out to me in a new way.

2 Timothy chapter 2, verse 20.

2 Timothy 2:20

Now in a great house there are not only vessels of gold and silver, but also of wood and clay.

Some vessels are for honorable use, some are for dishonorable.

Therefore, if anyone, well that that's me and you.

If anyone cleanses himself from what is dishonoring to God, he will be a vessel for honorable use, set apart as holy, useful to the master of the house, and ready for every good work.

I read that and the Spirit of God convicted me deeply that there were things in my life that were not honoring to God.

And God wanted me to deal with it and confess and invite his spirit to do a new work in my life.

How about you?

Don't miss this.

You know, you only have so many days on this earth.

Don't waste them.

That's my prayer.

I want to consecrate myself, God, to your purposes.

As we sang in that song earlier, oh great God of highest heaven, glorify your name through me.

You.

If you ponder his love for you, if the Spirit convinces you of what the Word of God says about you, you will find yourself offering yourself up to be consecrated, set apart.

And he will use you.

It doesn't matter what you've done, it doesn't matter where you've been in your life, it doesn't matter about the squandered opportunities, it doesn't matter.

He will use you.

But you need to offer yourself up to him, knowing how much he loves you.

Oh, praise be to God.

As we close the service in just a moment or two, uh, some of us are gonna be up here to pray.

If you, if the Spirit is leading you to reconsecrate your life today, come and pray.

You don't have to come up.

But sometimes it helps to actually vocalize, to get outside of your head, and to actually say things to somebody.

I want to be a clean vessel for the Lord, a vessel that he can use, useful to the master, prepared for every good work.

Let's pray.

Father, we offer ourselves to you.

How could we do anything less as we consider, Jesus, that you consecrated yourself to us?

Oh, Jesus, thank you.

Father, thank you.

Spirit, applier of all these truths to us, thank you.

Thank you, Jesus.

Amen.

Would you take your bulletin and look at the words adapted from the prayer of the Valley of Vision?

Please stand and read and pray these words with me.

O God of my delight, your throne of grace is the pleasure ground of my soul.

Here I obtain mercy in time of need.

Here I see the smile of your reconciled face.

Here joy pleads the name of Jesus.

Help me to come to him as the fountain of descending blessings as a wide open floodgate of mercy.

I marvel at my folly, that with his enriching blessings within my reach, I am slow to extend a hand to take them.

Have mercy upon my deadness for your name's sake, and strengthen me by the work of your spirit within me, that I might cling to you and walk humbly before you.

Amen.

This hymn that we're going to sing, Charles Wesley wrote.

Wesley wrote hundreds of hymns.

He said, This is the hymn that God used more than any other to see people come to Christ.

May our souls arise as we see Jesus.