Once again folks, let's pray.
Father, we thank you for this incredible chapter in the Bible, this incredible prayer.
Father, we will never in this lifetime ever get to the bottom of all the incredible glorious
things you have baked into this chapter of your Word.
And I just pray that you would help us see a little bit more this afternoon, that your
Word would shine forth, and that you would use my fallible words to honor your infallible
Word, that we may worship and glorify you as your church.
Amen.
As I mentioned in our last session, God has an incredible plan that is being fulfilled
in our world.
And I'd like to read that plan again for all of us to hear from Ephesians 1 verse 7.
In Him we have redemption through His blood, the forgiveness of our trespasses according
to the riches of His grace, which He lavished upon us in all wisdom and insight, making
known to us the mystery of His will according to His purpose, which He set forth in Christ
as a plan for the fullness of time to unite all things in Him, things in heaven, things
on earth.
That's the big picture.
What is God doing with sinners?
How is He making all things new?
How is He dealing with the evil in our world?
God is uniting all things in Him.
And that means that the church is massive.
We don't want to underestimate the church.
We're told in Ephesians 3 verse 9 that this is the plan of the mystery hidden for ages
in God who created all things so that through the church, the manifold wisdom of God might
now be made known to the rulers and authorities in the heavenly places.
This world as we know it is being transformed.
And that means God is using His church, the body of Jesus Christ right here on earth.
And of course, all of this goes back to an incredible moment in history.
The crucifixion of Jesus Christ.
And before this, an incredible prayer, which is why we are in John 17.
This is an incredible prayer with an incredible focus.
Four times in John 17, we have this emphasis on unity.
Ephesians tells us God has planned to unite all things in Him.
And in John 17, what do we see Jesus praying for?
We see Him praying for this very thing.
Four times.
Here's the reminder.
John 17 verse 11, Holy Father, keep them in your name, which you have given me that they
may be one even as we are one.
Verse 20, I do not ask for these only, but also for those who will believe in me through
their word.
That's you and I right here today.
That they may all be one just as you Father are in me and I in you.
That's two times.
That they also may be in us so that the world may believe that you have sent me.
The glory that you've given me, I've given to them.
Third time, that they may be one even as we are one, I in them and you in me.
Fourth time, that they may become perfectly one so that the world may know that you sent
me and love them even as you love me.
Four times, Jesus prays for this incredible unity between God and man.
A prayer that begins with glory and ends with love.
If you want to think about the structure of this prayer, there are three sections to it.
The first eight verses, we have Christ praying for Himself.
Verses 9 to 19, Jesus prays for His disciples.
And in the last section, 20 to 26, Jesus prays for His church.
But before we look at the details of this prayer, we must consider its position in time
and space.
Here's a prayer positioned poignantly and strategically before the greatest moment in
the history of our world.
At the hinge of history, that pivotal moment upon which the weight of glory rests.
That an hour unlike any other hour this universe has ever seen or ever will see again.
When Jesus prays, we are approaching that central moment in time upon which everything
turns.
This is the fulcrum of this universe.
The hour for which everything was made.
So what does Jesus have to say about this hour?
If you read through John's gospel, everything has been building up to this moment.
From as early as John chapter 2 verse 4, where Jesus' mother asks Him for help at the wedding
of Cana.
You might remember the story.
And Jesus says to her, woman, what does this have to do with me?
My hour has not yet come.
Right up to John 12 verse 27, when Jesus prays, now is my soul troubled.
And what shall I say?
Father, save me from this hour.
But for this purpose, I have come to this hour.
Father, glorify your name.
And here we are five chapters later in John 17, where finally Jesus tells us in His prayer
in the very first verse, Father, the hour has come.
Glorify your son.
That the son may glorify you.
Friends, what is this hour of glory?
What is Christ about to do?
Of course, this is where we obtain the preeminent symbol for Christianity.
The cross.
The hour of glory comes at the cross of Jesus Christ.
And this tells us a lot about what God thinks of glory.
Because what is the apex of the glory of God?
What does He reveal to this world in a moment of exquisite evil?
He shows us grace.
Incredible grace.
And to drive the point home, what do we find right there in the middle of the first five
verses of chapter 17?
As Jesus is speaking about this glorification of the Father and the Son, the Son glorifying
the Father as the Father glorifies the Son, right in the middle of those five verses,
we see this.
How does the Son glorify the Father?
I'll read from verse one.
When Jesus had spoken these words, He lifted up His eyes to heaven and said, Father, the
hour has come.
Glorify your Son that the Son may glorify you, since you have given Him authority over
all flesh to give eternal life to all whom you've given Him.
Isn't that interesting that that's the center?
What do we see at the heart of this glory that Christ speaks of?
We see eternal life.
Eternal life for sinners.
What will it take for Christ to give us this life?
What will it cost Him?
Everything.
He must lay down His life for us.
He must take our sins upon Him.
He must die our death.
He must suffer our punishment.
He must bear the weight of wrath that can only be borne by humans by an eternity of
hell.
This is how He gives us His life, eternal life.
Friends, this is where the promise found in Psalm 133 comes true.
Where has God commanded His blessing?
Where do we have eternal life?
Life forevermore?
At the cross.
That's where it comes.
That's where the dew of heaven falls.
And what is this eternal life?
What does it really mean to live?
This world has got lots of opinions on what it means to live.
Advertisements selling you stuff for a better life.
Have this car.
Visit this location.
Buy these clothes.
Eat this food.
Have this experience so that you can live and have life abundantly.
But Christ says, I have come that you may have life and have life abundantly.
He is the only one that can give us this quality and quantity of life.
And so what is this life?
Jesus tells us in John 17 verse 3, and this is eternal life.
That they know you, the only true God and Jesus Christ whom you have sent.
Eternal life means knowing the only true God revealed in Jesus Christ.
But how do we obtain this knowledge?
How are we to have this life?
How do we have this exquisite relationship with God that we can call Him our Father?
And the answer is the Word of God.
Look at chapter 17 verse 7.
Now they know that everything 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.
How do we know God?
We know God through His Word.
And that's where the miracle happens.
That's why we're spending this weekend a lot of time sitting here.
Words.
Friends, words are powerful.
God has ordained words for us to know Him by.
Words that can make dead people live.
Words that can turn nothing into everything as they once did at the beginning of time.
Powerful words.
Our God is a creator.
Fundamentally a creator of life.
And He speaks.
And that's why the Bible is no ordinary book.
Is why we devote our lives to studying and meditating and preaching and teaching and
singing and encouraging people to go back to the book.
Because in it God speaks.
It's not a dead word.
It is a living word.
Sharper than any two-edged sword.
Piercing to the division of soul and of marrow.
Discerning the thoughts and the intentions of the heart.
This is a word that can take stony hearts and turn stony hearts to life.
And that's where the miracle happens.
That's why at the heart of Christianity, at the heart of the church, there is a book.
An incredible book.
A book that reveals God to us.
A book through which Christ speaks.
Look again at what Jesus prays in verse 17.
Sanctify them in the truth.
Your word is truth.
Friends, this is what unifies the church.
This is the basis for our unity.
The church is not founded on wishful thinking.
The church is born of the infallible word of God.
1 Peter 1 verse 23, you have been born again not of perishable seed but of imperishable
through the living and abiding word of God.
For all flesh is like grass and all its glory like the flower of grass.
The grass withers and the flower falls but the word of the Lord remains forever and this
word is the good news that was preached to you.
The church was born by the word of God.
And as Romans 10 verse 17 tells us, faith comes through hearing and hearing through
the word of Christ.
This is how we live.
This is how we grow.
Sanctify them in the truth.
The word is truth.
Which means that our unity as a church rests upon our understanding and obedience to the
word of God.
And that's why the word has to be central to everything we do.
Central to our worship, our fellowship, our singing.
This is the basis for our unity.
Now you sometimes have these phones that go dead.
We all carry phones and phones without software are dead phones.
That software on your phone is called firmware.
Some of you might know this.
And the firmware gets scribbled.
It doesn't matter how great the phone is.
It's a dead phone.
It's a useless phone.
Phones need software.
They need words put in them, instructions given to them so that phones can live and work and
thrive and be useful so that we can do things with these phones.
God's word is the software that gets us going, that makes us come alive.
Without His word, we are dead phones.
We're useless.
We're bricked.
And most importantly, God's word connects us to God Himself.
God's word reveals God to us.
God's word shows us Christ.
God's word shows us glory.
God's word creates.
When we receive the word of Christ by faith, what happens?
Is a creation that takes place, a new creation.
Sinners are transformed.
God's people are sanctified and the church is glorified.
And I find this fascinating.
Look at verse 10.
All mine are yours and yours are mine and I am glorified in them.
Christ is glorified in the church.
Verse 22, this is what Jesus prays.
The glory that you have given me, I have given to them.
That's us.
That they may be one even as we are one.
What is this glory that Christ speaks of?
How is the church glorified?
And to answer this question, I want to first ask, well, what is this glory that Christ
anticipates right at the beginning of this chapter when He says, Father, the hour has
come, glorify your Son that the Son may glorify you.
Where do we see this hour of glory?
Where do we see the Father glorifying the Son as the Son glorifies the Father?
What's about to happen?
The cross.
What is the glory of God?
And you know, again, there's a fascinating story from the Old Testament, Exodus 33, where
Moses asks this question of the Lord.
He says to the Lord, please show me your glory.
And you know what the Lord says to Moses?
You know what I'm going to show you, Moses, so you see my glory.
He says to Moses, I'll make all my goodness pass before you and I will proclaim before
you my name the Lord and I will be gracious to whom I'll be gracious and show mercy on
whom I will show mercy.
What do we see when Christ hangs on that cross?
We see love, the like of which no one has ever seen, ever.
Can you calibrate a love that can do that?
Has there ever been greater love than the love that we see that keeps Christ on that
cross from one moment to the next, when in an instant he could vaporize this planet?
Here's the one that lays down his life of his own accord.
What incredible love.
Here we have these sinners spitting at him, mocking him, egging him on.
At any moment he could have just ended it.
What incredible love.
Joy.
You say to yourself, what does joy have to do with the crucifixion?
And yet in Hebrews, what do we read?
For the joy that was set before him, Christ endured the cross.
Has there ever been anyone more serious about joy than Jesus Christ, that he was prepared
to go through a crucifixion to get it?
Love, joy, peace.
Who is the greatest peacemaker?
Did Jesus wait for us to come to him and say, please forgive me?
Did he wait for his enemies to rock up and knock on the gates of heaven and say, sorry,
we've let you down.
We've fallen short of your glory.
No.
He is the greatest peacemaker.
There's no one who is as committed to peace than Jesus Christ, that he would come into
this world to people who hate him and die for them.
Love, joy, peace, patience.
What incredible patience.
Kindness.
Think of the kindness he's there on the cross and the two criminals on either side of him
are rioting against him and he preaches the gospel to them.
And that one man, he says, today you'll be with me in paradise.
He says from the cross, father, forgive them.
They don't know what they're doing.
What incredible kindness, goodness, self-control.
Faithfulness.
Has a son ever obeyed his father to that extent?
What son would endure a crucifixion because his father says, my son, I want you to die
in this way.
And yet Christ willingly, we see him in the garden of Gethsemane, not my will, but yours
be done, he prays.
Faithfulness, incredible faithfulness, humility.
Who is Christ that he should die a death like that?
We'd say if anyone doesn't need to be humble, surely it's Christ and yet he outstrips everyone
in terms of humility.
There has been no greater act of humility than what we see on the cross.
Meekness.
Friends, when we look at the cross, we see a spectacle of glory, the like of which this
universe wasn't prepared for.
Stunning, staggering.
Really Christ prays here, the hour has come for the son to be glorified and I will glorify
you my father in this moment.
And friends, here's the incredible thing.
This glory that we're talking of, of which Moses said, please show me, is the glory Christ
gives to his church.
That we have his spirit in us to produce what kinds of fruit, love, joy, peace, patience,
kindness, goodness, faithfulness, gentleness, self-control, humility, meekness.
This is a stunning passage.
It's provocative.
So being sanctified in truth, we are glorified in Christ.
And what does this glory mean for us?
If he does glorify us in this way by giving us his spirit, do you know what it means?
It means we are loved.
So incredibly loved.
You have never been loved like this.
Here's the connection between glory and love.
Look at verse 22.
Jesus prays, the glory that you have given me, I have given to them that they may be
one even as we are one, I and them and you and me, that they may become perfectly one
so that the world may know that you sent me and loved them even as you loved me.
Being glorified means being loved.
Look at verse 24.
Father, I desire that they also whom you have given me may be with me where I am to see
my glory that you have given me because you love me before the foundation of the world.
Why was Jesus glorified by the Father?
Because he was loved.
What does Jesus pray for us?
Love.
Why?
Because he wants to glorify us.
To which we ask, how much does the Father love the Son?
How can we measure such love?
How much do a husband and wife love each other at their wedding?
What about 10 years later?
20 years.
Who's been married here for 20 years?
Hands up.
Anyone?
20 years of marriage.
30.
40.
Anyone?
Almost 40.
45.
Wow, respect.
47.
It's like an auction.
Sold.
So 50th is gold, yes.
60 years.
Diamond.
70 years.
Platinum.
80 years.
Oak.
90 years.
That's good.
Granite.
90 years you get granite.
That's a tombstone.
Apparently, so there's a couple, and that wasn't this long ago, Karam and Katari Chand.
Apparently, they celebrated their granite wedding anniversary.
That's not too shabby, eh?
90 years.
Of course, we mustn't forget the patriarchs.
Adam lived until he was 930 years old, and if he was married for most of that time, that
would have been impressive.
But can you imagine the depth of that kind of love?
Someone that you have shared your life with for 50, 60 years.
How close do you become?
How hard is it to say goodbye when that person is taken away from you?
Friends, how long has the father known the son for?
And what kind of a relationship was that?
Was it characterized by fights, disagreements, quarrels?
Perfect.
Perfect unending eternal love.
This is the love that Jesus prays for us.
Verse 22, the glory that you have given me, I've given to them, that they may be one even
as we are one, I in them and you in me, that they may become perfectly one so that the
world may know that you sent me and loved them even as you love me.
Verse 26, I may known to them your name and will continue to make it known that the love
with which you have loved me may be in them and I in them.
How incredible is that?
So this is a prayer that shows us unity in triunity.
What does Christ pray for his church?
He prays that we may be one just as the Father is in him and he is in the Father.
He prays that we might be, he might be in us and us in him.
And at what cost?
An infinite cost.
The cross of Christ, a glory the like of which there is no greater, a glorious cascade from
the Father to the Son to the church, as the Father gives his word to the Son so the Son
gives his word to the church, as the Father glorifies the Son so the Son glorifies the
church, as the Father loves the Son so the Son loves the church, a glorious three-fold
unity of truth, glory and love, sanctified in the truth, glorified in Christ, loved by
the Father.
Let's pray.
Father, we cannot ever understand this.
This is incredible and when we think of the things we give our lives to in this world,
we are pathetic.
The things that we consider to be important and crave, Father help us to know this love.
May your Spirit produce this, this glory in us as we produce your fruit and show the world
this incredible unity manifest in the church.
Amen.