Just a word of update regarding Rose Burton, who was involved in an accident on her way
to church tonight apparently, and does not seem to have any serious injuries that we
know of at this point.
She's on her way to the hospital right now in an ambulance, but that seems to be the
initial word that her, at least her injuries were not serious as much as they know.
So we're glad for that initial report.
Would you please turn in your Bible with me to John chapter 17 as we think tonight about
the good gifts of John 17.
Each December I have to ask my wife for a Christmas list of gifts that she might like
to have.
I suppose if I were the husband I ought to be, I would be taking notes throughout the
year as she mentions things that she would like to have, or we go through the store shopping
together when I'm so patiently walking along.
As she mentions the various things that look nice to her, unfortunately I'm not that good
of a husband, and so I have to have that list to work off of.
She writes down those things that she would like to receive, and then I begin selecting
those gifts based upon my budget.
Usually the list is longer than the budget is, but that's the way it goes.
We enjoy giving gifts to our loved ones at Christmas time, don't we?
Heard a story about a little boy that went with his mother to the department store, and
like a lot of little children, he wanted to sit on the lap of Santa Claus.
He did, and Santa Claus said, well little boy, what would you like for Christmas?
So he said, well you better get out a pencil and write it down.
Then Santa Claus said, don't worry about that.
He said, I've got a good memory, you can just tell me.
The little boy was kind of dubious about that, but he went ahead and listed what he wanted
for Christmas, and jumped down off of Santa's lap and went on his way.
Well, it just so happened that afternoon, they went to another department store, and
there was another Santa Claus there.
So he got up on Santa Claus' lap, and Santa Claus asked the question he always did, he
said, well little boy, what do you want for Christmas?
The little guy jumped down and kicked him in the leg and said, you numbskull, I knew
you'd forget.
Aren't you glad we have a heavenly Father who knows how to give good gifts to His children
and doesn't forget?
John chapter 17 is something of a gift list.
Gifts that God has given to His Son, and which His Son in turn has shared with us who belong
to Him.
God delights to give good things to those who are the delight of His soul.
In Psalm 34 we read, O fear the Lord, you His saints, for to those who fear Him there
is no want.
The young lions do lack and suffer hunger, but they who seek the Lord shall not be in
want of any good thing.
Please understand that that is not a proof text for prosperity theology, what might be
called better, prosperity poppycock.
That teaching that is prevalent in some circles today that we can expect God to make all of
us who are Christians healthy and prosperous without exception, if only our faith is strong
enough.
I call that poppycock and not theology because it simply doesn't hold water as far as what
the Bible teaches.
There are some people of remarkable faith who have suffered sorely in life, such as
those mentioned in Hebrews 11, of whom it says, they went about in sheepskins, in goatskins,
being destitute, afflicted, ill-treated, wandering in deserts and mountains and caves and holes
in the ground.
It goes on to say, and these gained approval for their faith.
They wouldn't exactly be the ones to give the testimonies, though, on some of the programs
that you hear that preach prosperity gospel.
The verses, like those in Psalm 34, however, teach us general principles that God's saints
through the ages have found true.
It does not guarantee that all of us will escape consequences, for example, of our own
foolishness.
God does not protect us all the time from that.
There are some times He graciously intervenes, but there are times when He well lets us suffer
consequences of our own mistakes, including financial mistakes, so that we remember them.
Nor does a promise like that found in Psalm 34, which we read, mean that we will never
come under persecution, or that we will never pass through the same sorts of tests and trials
that are common to all people.
But the fact is, generally speaking, that God gives good things to those who are His.
James 1, 17 says, Every good thing bestowed and every perfect gift is from above, coming
down from the Father of lights, with whom there is no variation or shifting shadow.
The fact is that God loves to give generously, and He does.
But of all of the exquisite, priceless gifts which God has given, it seems to me the one
at the very top of the list is the one that we're basically going to deal with tonight.
The one at the top of the list, the gift from God that is most priceless, is the gift of
revelation concerning Himself.
He allows us to know Him.
We who are finite, we creatures, God tells us about Himself.
Nothing surpasses the value of that self-disclosure from God.
In John 17 we want to read beginning in verse 6.
Remember, these are words which our Lord Jesus prayed before He was crucified, but He was
praying as though all of His work at the cross were finished.
He was already in the presence of the Father interceding on behalf of those who are His.
Verse 6, I manifested Thy name to the men whom Thou gavest me out of the world.
Mine they were, and Thou gavest them to me, and they have kept Thy word.
Now they have come to know that everything Thou hast given me is from Thee.
For the words which Thou gavest me I have given to them.
And they received them, and truly understood that I came forth from Thee.
And they believed that Thou didst send me.
I ask on their behalf.
I do not ask on behalf of the world, but of those whom Thou hast given me, for they are
Thine.
And all things that are mine are Thine, and Thine are mine, and I have been glorified
in them.
And I am no more in the world, and yet they themselves are in the world.
And I come to Thee, Holy Father, keep them in Thy name.
The name which Thou hast given me, that they may be one even as we are.
While I was with them, I was keeping them in Thy name, which Thou hast given me.
And I guarded them, and not one of them perished, but the son of perdition, that the Scripture
might be fulfilled.
But now I come to Thee, and these things I speak in the world, that they may have my
joy made full in themselves.
I have given them Thy word, and the world has hated them, because they are not of the
world, even as I am not of the world.
I do not ask Thee to take them out of the world, but to keep them from the evil, or
the evil one.
They are not of the world, even as I am not of the world.
Sanctify them in the truth.
Thy word is truth.
As Thou didst send me into the world, I also have sent them into the world.
And for their sakes I sanctify myself, that they themselves also may be sanctified in
truth.
Now these words are like an ocean that one could explore a long time and never really
plumb the depths.
And yet tonight we want to look at this theme of the gifts that God has given.
The gift of knowing God comes to us through His Son.
The Father in the first place committed to the Son the responsibility to manifest the
name of God.
Jesus says here a couple of times, the name that Thou gavest me.
What does that mean?
What is the name of God?
Is it a particular title?
Is it a particular expression by which we are to address God?
What does Jesus mean by the name that the Father had given to Him and which He in turn
had passed on to His own?
You may recall a couple of chapters before this, Jesus instructed His disciples to pray
in His name.
What Jesus was saying there was, when you pray to the Father, pray with the full realization
of me, who I am, as representing me before the Father.
We often tag on to the end of our prayers those words, in Jesus' name, amen.
That is not specifically what Jesus had in mind.
It's not wrong to pray that way, but often that's just sort of a way to say, now I'm
done praying.
And that's about all it means.
What Jesus was saying was, when you pray, when you come to the Father, realize who I
am, and that you stand before the Father in the fullness of who I am.
And in that sense you pray in my name, who I am.
The name in the Bible represents the nature of the person who's called by that name.
Thus you find, for example, that Moses named his two sons what he did because they were
representatives, they reminded him of certain things.
And that happened many times in the Bible, that was common in people in that day.
The names meant something about an event or about the nature of the child or the child's
birth or the family or circumstances.
The name meant something.
And so when Jesus says, Father, you have given to me your name, he is saying, you have given
to me the privilege, the responsibility of declaring all that you are your name, all
that you are to them.
And I have done that.
So the Father gave to the Son the responsibility to manifest the fullness of all that God is.
We looked at this not too long ago, more at length, and so I'm going to pass on tonight.
But I remind you that in the past, in the Old Testament, God spoke in bits and pieces,
here and there, apart here, apart there.
And he spoke in many different ways through the prophets.
But it was in his Son that he fully revealed himself to us.
He put all of the pieces together and then Son through Jesus Christ.
So Jesus is simply expressing here as he prays that he knows the Father has given to him
the responsibility to disclose what God is like, what the nature of God is.
And he says, I have passed it on now to my own.
The Son gave to his own that word of revelation from the Father.
Notice in verse 8, Jesus says, the words which thou gavest me I have given to them.
And in verse 14, I have given them thy word.
Now in the full text that we read tonight, there are several statements that we can make
that I think apply to our lives.
First of all, these who were his own here were those who were given to him by the Father.
He says that in verse 6, the men whom thou gavest me out of the world, thine they were
and thou gavest them to me.
Again in verse 9 he says, I ask on their behalf, I do not ask on behalf of the world but of
those whom thou hast given me.
Not everyone is given to the Son.
Again we talked about this before so I will not go on this too long.
But just by way of reminder that if you are a Christian tonight, you are one who has been
given by the Father to the Son as a love gift.
That is a very precious privilege that you belong to the Son in a unique sense.
He purchased you and you have been given by the Father to him as his own peculiar possession.
Therefore you have lost your first identity which was as a citizen of the world.
Jesus points that out in verse 14, the world has hated them because they are not of the
world.
Just like I am not, he says.
He repeats himself in verse 16, they are not of the world.
What has happened?
A basic change in identity has taken place because they were given by the Father to the
Son that original identity with the world and its sin and its God, Satan, that original
identity has been changed so that now they are no longer of the world but now they belong
to him, to Jesus Christ.
I notice secondly that those who are given to the Son give evidence of that.
What is the evidence?
Well, in verse 6 he sort of summarizes it by saying, they have kept thy word.
What does he mean by that?
They have kept thy word.
I think he elaborates on that in verse 8.
Notice the process.
He says the words that thou gavest me I have given to them.
Notice, and they received them.
That is, they embraced them.
They welcomed them.
But not only that, and truly understood, he says, that I came forth from thee.
So those whom the Father gave to the Son proved that by the fact that number one, they received
the word of God and understood in the depths of their spirit who Jesus is, that he came
forth from the Father.
And not only that, he says, and they believed that thou didst send me.
Saving faith.
So those that are given to the Son prove that they are given to the Son by their receiving
of the word of God, the fact that they understand it, or as it says in verse 7, they've come
to know, and then they believe it.
They believe it.
That is the human side of it, isn't it?
The fact that we are given by the Father to the Son, that's the divine side of salvation.
Here we have the human side, the response side, and the part of man to receive, to understand,
and to believe that word of God and who Jesus Christ is and what he's done for us.
Now he goes on to say a third thing.
Those who believed, because they were given by the Father to the Son, he says, were guarded
by Christ during his time with them.
In verse 12, he's speaking in the context here about the disciples.
He says, while I was with them, I was keeping them in thy name, which thou hast given me.
Notice that the security of the disciples rested upon the full nature of God, his name.
Not upon who they were, what they did, but upon who God is.
That's the security.
And Jesus says, those Father whom you've given me and who therefore believed on me,
I have guarded, I have kept them during my time with them, with one exception.
And that wasn't that he lost one, but it's that one who was with the disciples was not
a true disciple.
And that of course was Judas, who is called here the son of perdition, the son of destruction.
And Judas' role was in fulfillment of the Scriptures.
The Old Testament had prophesied that there would be one like that.
And so John here records the words of our Savior as he acknowledges this to be true.
He kept those that were given to him, but one, though he had traveled with them, had
not been given, had not believed, and had not been guarded.
And that was Judas.
No one in his right mind would desire to be a Judas.
But it is tragically possible for a person nonetheless to go along with salvation, to
be in the company of other Christians, to use the language, to go through the rituals,
to even be a member of the church, and yet in the end to lose it all because there hasn't
been that personal faith in Jesus Christ.
How tragic.
How sorrowful will be the judgment for that kind of person who has gone through life thinking
sincerely everything's fine, but who never made that personal commitment of faith to
Christ, and who therefore comes down to the last judgment and finds himself lost eternally,
never having really been one of Christ's own.
Those who are guarded by Christ were then guarded by the Father.
This is the fourth statement I want to make.
Those who are guarded by Christ were then guarded by the Father after Christ's departure
from the earth, after he went back to heaven.
In verse 11 he prays, Holy Father, keep them in thy name.
Notice again the basis of the keeping is who God is, his name.
Not who the disciples are, not what they did, but who God is.
Keep them in thy name which thou hast given me.
So he prays that after he has gone away back to heaven, that the Father would then take
up the keeping ministry, and God has done that, of course.
Why did Jesus pray this?
Well, it seems to be in our context at least two reasons for it.
He prays, number one, that the Father would do this, verse 11 again, that they may be
one even as we.
He says, Father, I want you to keep them so that they may be one, reflecting the unity
between me and yourself.
Now there are those who press today for ecumenical movements based upon John 17.
Was Jesus here praying that the Father would one day make all denominations one?
No he was not.
I'm not arguing that denominations are the perfect will of God for his people, because
I don't believe that to be the case.
But that's the human development.
What is Jesus praying for, that they may be one?
What's he talking about?
And is that something that's happened or hasn't happened?
Well, can you imagine a prayer request of God the Son that God the Father wouldn't
answer?
Is it possible that Jesus could pray this in his high priestly prayer and the Father
would never do this?
Of course not.
It's impossible to think of that.
The Father is always going to answer the prayer of his Son.
So it's something that was fulfilled.
When?
Well, it began to be fulfilled on the day of Pentecost when the Holy Spirit came from
the Father and the Son and for the first time united spiritually into one body all believers
in Jesus Christ.
Irrespective of human denominations and divisions, all believers, those given by the Father to
the Son, have become one body because of the Holy Spirit's ministry in this age.
So my conviction is, no I said to our new member of class tonight, we have opinions
and convictions, you die for convictions.
I'm not going to die for this, but it's my strong opinion that Jesus' prayer was
fulfilled on the day of Pentecost in the coming of the Holy Spirit when that essential unity
between believers and himself was established for all time.
So he says, Father keep them so that there may be that unity and not one ever be lost.
Isn't it wonderful?
That one of the reasons that you and I are eternally secure in our relationship to God
is because Jesus Christ has prayed we would never be lost.
That not one of them should perish.
Oh, I know there are people who say, well, Judas, wait a minute, Judas never was a believer.
He only went along with it all.
He never belonged to the Lord Jesus.
So he wasn't lost after having been found.
He never was found.
He never did belong to Christ.
Jesus prayed that we would be kept, that we might be one.
But there's a second reason I think the scriptures tell us here that he prayed that the Father
would keep us and that's in verse 15.
He says, I do not ask you to take them out of the world but to keep them from the evil
one.
And so he prays that the Father would keep us from the tremendous pressures of evil in
this world in which we live.
Evil is not just a moral force.
It is that.
But behind that moral force of evil is personality that the Bible calls the devil along with
his hosts of angels that fell out of heaven with him.
They are the ones that give power to that moral evil.
Jesus here prays, Father, keep them, guard them, keep them from the evil and probably
understood as the evil one.
In other words, he is praying that Satan might never again be able to get a hold of us.
It's possible for you and for me to fall into his traps and we do.
We can trip at his snares.
We can be beguiled and believe his deceiving words but we can never again belong to him
because Jesus has prayed that the Father would keep us from that.
It's a wonderful thing.
Jesus says, Father, you keep them as I go back to heaven.
And finally, we see this I think in our text, that those who are given by the Father to
the Son and who therefore believed and who therefore are guarded by God the Father are
also now sent into the world just like the Son was sent into the world.
Verse 18, as thou didst send me into the world, I also have sent them into the world.
And so you see now, though they have been called out of the world and protected from
the world and the evil one, they are sent back to the world as ambassadors of the good
news that we might tell them what God is like.
That we might carry the name of God to those who are still lost.
That they might come to know him and to believe on him.
That's the cycle here.
We are called out to belong that we might go back to the world out of which we were
called.
Let me just make four quick applications and we'll be on our way.
Number one, we too have been given to Christ by God the Father.
We've talked about that.
The fact that you've believed on the Lord Jesus Christ means that you have been given
to Christ by God the Father and we give evidence of that by our response to the Word of God.
That's the proof that we are genuinely Christ's.
Number three, we who respond to the Word in faith are guarded by Christ and by the Father.
Jesus says in John chapter 10, I give unto them eternal life and they shall never perish.
We are kept today.
Jesus says here in fact in John 17, I pray not just for these whom you've given me
but for those who believe through them.
Now we're down a few generations away but we're in view here when Jesus prays.
So we are kept saved, we are guarded by God the Father and by Jesus Christ.
Which leads me to the final application.
We who are guarded, we who are kept are sent on a mission to the world out of which we've
been called.
Did you know that God has a Christmas gift for the world this Christmas?
That's right.
There's somebody listening back there.
Can I ask you what it is?
God has a Christmas gift for the world and that Christmas gift is you, Christian.
You're the gift.
What does the gift contain?
Can those people in your office or in your classroom or in your neighborhood look at
that gift from God to them?
What do they see?
What do they understand about God?
Do they see a life that is pure?
A life that is different?
A life that is attractive?
A life that is loving?
Do they hear words from our lips that tell them what God is like and how they might come
to know God?
This Christmas, God has a gift for the whole world and that gift is you.
You as a channel of Jesus Christ to touch the lives of those around you.
Folks, let's be the kind of Christmas gifts that we would want to receive if we were on
the other end of it.
Let's be the kind of people that we would want to see if we were lost that we might
come to know God.
Let's pray.
Lord, you have given us to your beloved Son and by grace we confess we have been led to
believe.
By grace we are kept and by grace we have been sent.
Oh Jesus.
Jesus, we pray that as our friends and our neighbors open up the gifts from you this
Christmas and as they peer into our lives and behold our personalities and listen to
our words that that gift will be what you want to give them.
Knowledge of who you are.
May we be channels of your life and your love, your gospel to those around us.
Thank you for coming, for calling us, for keeping us and commissioning us.
Amen.