Loved ones, would you turn in your Bibles to the Gospel of John, chapter 17. John 17. This is one lengthy prayer of Jesus, and I would like to read this whole prayer, the whole chapter. John 17, let us hear the word of the Lord. After Jesus said this, He looked toward heaven and prayed, Father, the time has come. Glorify Your Son that Your Son may glorify You. For You granted Him authority over all people that He might give eternal life to all those You have given Him. Now this is eternal life, that they may know You, the only true God, and Jesus Christ whom You have sent. I have brought You glory on earth by completing the work You gave Me to do. And now, Father, glorify Me in Your presence with the glory I had with you before the world began. I have revealed you to those whom you gave me out of the world. They were yours. You gave them to me, and they have obeyed your word. And now they know that everything you have given me comes from you. For I gave them the words you gave me, and they accepted them. They knew with certainty that I came from you, and they believed that you sent me. I pray for them. I'm not praying for the world, but for those you have given me, for they are yours. All I have is yours, and all you have is mine, and glory has come to me through them. I will remain in the world no longer, but they are still in the world, and I am coming to you. Holy Father, protect them by the power of your name, the name you gave me, so that they may be one as we are one. While I was with them, I protected them and kept them safe by that name you gave me. None has been lost except the one doomed to destruction so that Scripture would be fulfilled. I am coming to you now, but I say these things while I am still in the world so that they may have the full measure of my joy within them. I have given them your word and the world has hated them, for they are not of the world any more than I am of the world. My prayer is not that You take them out of the world, but that You protect them from the evil one. They are not of the world, even as I am not of it. Sanctify them by the truth. Your Word is truth. As You sent Me into the world, I have sent them into the world. For them I sanctify Myself, and that they too may be truly sanctified. My prayer is not for them alone. I also pray for those who will believe in Me through their message, that all of them may be one, Father, just as you are in me and I am in you. May they also be in us so that the world may believe that you have sent me. I have given them the glory that you gave me, that they may be one as we are one. I and them and you and me, may they be brought to complete unity to let the world know that you sent me and have loved them even as you have loved me. Father, I want those you have given me to be with me where I am and to see my glory. The glory you have given me because you loved me before the creation of the world. Righteous Father, though the world does not know you, I know you and they know that you have sent me. I have made you known to them and will continue to make you known in order that the love you have for me may be in them and that I myself may be in them. So far the reading of God's holy and infallible Word. May He bless it to our hearts by the power of His Spirit. Well, John 17, this is truly one of the richest and most sublime portions of Scripture. In this prayer, we have a glimpse of the communion between the Father and the Son that was kept throughout the Son's earthly ministry. And this is truly the Lord's Prayer. I know we often pray what is called the Lord's Prayer, But we might rightly call that prayer the prayer that the Lord taught us to pray. This is the prayer that Jesus himself prayed to the Father. And it's especially important because it comes at the end of his discourse in chapters 14 through 16. This long block of instruction, this long sermon that he gives to his disciples. And of course, it's this prayer that's prayed right on the eve of his crucifixion. It's often been called the greatest prayer ever prayed on earth following the greatest sermon ever preached on earth. And there is indeed so much that we could look at today and could be expounded on in this chapter. But what I would like to draw your attention to is verse 13. Notice verse 13. In the middle of this prayer, Jesus says, But now I come to you, and these things I speak in the world, that they may have My joy fulfilled in themselves. Now, Jesus utters this statement about joy in the midst of this great prayer before He's going to the cross. He's concerned about their joy. Now, that's striking. If it were faith or hope or love that He had mentioned right there, we would think that's okay, that seems right. But joy? Why is He so concerned about their joy right before He's going to the cross? Well, the joy of the Lord is something very important to God. The joy that we would have. And it's obviously of great importance to our Lord, for He prays it right here on the eve of His going to the cross, that His followers might have this joy. So consider this with me, this joy of the Lord, that Jesus speaks of here in the midst of this prayer. We might think through this by asking three questions. What is the joy of the Lord? Why should we have the joy of the Lord? And finally, how do we maintain the joy of the Lord? So in the first place, what is the joy of the Lord? What is this joy that Jesus prays for in the midst of his prayer? Well, first take this word joy. And that word in the original language is very simple. It just means the experience of gladness. Now, that's simple enough. All of us know about that. We go through our whole day looking for an experience of gladness, right? When we wake up in the morning, we go to the kitchen, you look for something to eat that's going to give you some experience of gladness. From the food that we eat, to the clothes that we put on, to everything in life. We go through our day making decisions, trying to give us some joy, some experience of gladness. And this is particularly true in America where we spend billions of dollars every year seeking to be entertained in sports and movies and music. But all of these things, of course, they're very temporary. They're not necessarily evil in and of themselves, but they're very temporary. We're happy when we have them, and when they're gone, we're wanting them again and can't wait for the next time we get them. They're based on our circumstances. But the joy that Christ speaks of, this joy here in chapter 17 that he's praying for, it's different. And it's different because of the possessive pronoun, my. He calls it my joy. Elsewhere, he said the same thing earlier in his discourse to the disciples in chapter 15. He said, these things I have spoken to you that my joy may remain in you and that your joy may be full. You see, the joy that is Christ's is unlike the joy of the world for it's independent of life's circumstances. Now just think of the life of the Lord Jesus Christ. Did he have an easy life or a difficult life? He had a hard life. He was a man of sorrows. He was a man acquainted with grief. Now how can a man like that speak of his joy and speak of it so strongly? Even now as he went to the cross, he was on the very eve of his hour fulfilling what he had come to earth to do. Living an obedient life to God's law and now going to the cross, this dark place to face the wrath of God. This horrible experience, the most horrible experience any man would ever face, being made sin and having God's wrath poured out upon him. How is it that he speaks of this joy? Well, the gladness and the joy that Jesus knew in his earthly life, it was a heavenly joy. It was a joy of the ages yet to come. It's a joy that we call in theology eschatological joy. Now, there's a big $10 theological word for you. Eschatological joy. Heavenly joy. Joy of the ages yet to come. That was the joy that Christ had. It was this joy that was set before Him as He endured the cross and despised the shame. That joy that Christ anticipated as He underwent the sufferings of the cross and He drained that cup of God's wrath for His people. It was the joy of His resurrection and the joy of knowing that He was the last Adam that would fulfill that which the first Adam had failed in. It was a taste of that joy that was yet to come that was experienced during His earthly ministry. And so when we think of the joy of the Lord, if I were to ask you, what is the joy of the Lord? In the first place, we must say, it's that joy that Christ Himself knew. That joy that is a heavenly joy. A joy of the ages yet to come. That's the kind of joy that He had. But we can't stop there. The joy of the Lord is also this joy that He produces in our hearts by the power of His Spirit. It's a joy that we too know. It comes from Him. He's the source and it's impossible apart from Him. It's a work of His Spirit. It's something that is a fruit, a byproduct of God's work in our lives. And so the joy of the Lord is not some kind of frenzy that we whip ourselves into. It's not some kind of holy laughter that we would all embark upon in a worship service. It's nothing like that. Nor is it some kind of fake and phony face that we put on when we come to church and say, oh, everything's great, when we know that things are not great. That's not the joy of the Lord. The joy of the Lord is the same joy that Christ knew and it's this joy that He produces in our hearts that flows from the core of our being. It's a work of His Spirit and it changes our perspective on this life. For we know who we are in Christ and we know what awaits us in the end and it gives us a joy as we travel through this life, this veil of tears, this difficult age. It's this joy. It's a fruit of the Spirit. That's why Paul in Galatians chapter 5, he names it right after love. It's a blessing that we receive as a result of our salvation and being indwelt by the Holy Spirit. It's this joy also that all of the saints in heaven now experience being free from sin and sorrow. And loved ones, it's the joy that we will know in its fullest on the last day when we are resurrected to life and we receive new physical glorified bodies fit for the glory of an age to come in the new heavens and the new earth. Oh, we'll know it in its fullness then. And yet it's come in and invaded our present time by the power of the Holy Spirit and we know it in part now. This joy. So the joy of the Lord. Peter spoke of it to his readers when He said in chapter 1 of His first epistle, though you do not yet see Him, yet believing, you rejoice with joy inexpressible and full of glory, receiving the end of your faith, the salvation of your souls. So what is the joy of the Lord? It's the joy that Christ Himself knew and it's this joy that He produces in our hearts by the power of His Spirit. This heavenly joy. This joy that we will know in its fullest in the age to come. So that is what the joy of the Lord is. But why particularly? Why should we have the joy of the Lord? Why is Christ so concerned that His disciples have His joy fulfilled in themselves? Again, He's going to the cross. He's going to be delivered up. And He's going to be physically removed from these loved ones of His. They love Him dearly. They don't want Him to leave. And indeed, they're very afraid. Their hearts are troubled. Well, Christ wants them to have this joy. He wants them to have it in the first place because He knows that they are going to go into all the world as His apostles, bringing the Gospel to all the nations, and they're going to have violent attacks, physically and spiritually, from the world, the flesh, and the devil. And He wants them to have this joy so that God will be glorified in their lives. Why do we have the joy of the Lord? Why should we have it? So that God is glorified in us. God is glorified by our joy. Indeed, this is why He commanded that we rejoice and be glad. You know, throughout the Bible, if you marched from Genesis to Revelation through redemptive history and you read all the places that God commands His people to have joy. It's rather interesting. It's surprising. You find it in the law over and over again. For example, in Deuteronomy chapter 12 when God was prescribing a place of worship, He said, And you shall rejoice before the Lord your God, you and your sons and your daughters, your male and female servants, and the Levite who is within your gates. It's there in the books of Moses. God telling His people, have joy. Be joyful. As we move to the Psalms, we see it over and over again in the Psalms. Now, of course, the Psalms don't only speak about joy. They speak about all kinds of emotions. Sadness and difficulty and trust in the Lord. And we should sing all of those things. But of course, we know that they speak so much about joy. Over and over again, they tell us to have joy. Psalm 2, serve the Lord with fear and rejoice with trembling. in the psalm that we read this morning for the call to worship. Psalm 100. Make a joyful shout to the Lord. All you lands, serve the Lord with gladness. So it's in the books of Moses. It's in the Psalms. As we turn to the New Testament, the same theme is there. Paul writing to the Philippians. Rejoice. Again, I say rejoice. Writing to the Thessalonians. Rejoice always. And then he adds this. For this is the will of God in Christ Jesus for you. Oh, what's God's will for my life? Well, among other things, it's to have joy. It's to be joyful. God wants His people to be joyful. Otherwise, He would not command them with the imperative. And the reason for this is that it sets us apart from a world that does not know this joy. It sets us apart from a world that is defeated and frustrated by life. because we have a joy that is independent of our circumstances and it acts as a testimony to the world. You know, if our joy is only dependent upon our circumstances and what is happening to us physically, well, then we're really no different than the world, are we? But having the joy of the Lord fulfilled in us by His Spirit is a mark of God's ownership upon our lives. For it's a fruit of that Spirit that has sealed us for the day of redemption. And it brings glory to God. And so others who are frustrated, who are defeated, they're able to see us also often frustrated in this life, often downcast, often discouraged. And yet in the midst of our difficulties and in the midst of our tears, we still have this godly joy. And it brings God glory. So why should we have the joy of the Lord? To glorify God. But also, also notice that the disciples were to have Christ's joy fulfilled in them for their own good. For their own good. We see in this prayer Jesus' great pastoral concern for His disciples, for His followers. Again, He knows that they're going to be attacked violently. He knows that the world, the flesh, and the devil, those three sworn enemies, are going to come in and press up against their minds as they go through a life of hardship. He wants them to have this joy as a safeguard against those things. They would need it. It would be a great benefit to their lives as they faced all types of adversity. Now, loved ones, you and I will never be apostles. not like these apostles. These apostles were special office bearers who saw the risen Lord Jesus Christ physically, and you and I have not seen that. You and I will never be apostles in this life. That work was done 2,000 years ago, and the church is built upon that foundation. Well, that's true, and yet at the same time, the joy of the Lord that Christ was so concerned that these apostles would have, He's no less concerned that we will have as well. We know something of this joy. We're to have this joy. It's no less for their good than it is for our own good. We're to have this joy of the Lord. This joy is strength to us. We're able to face the tribulation of this world. We're able to face all of life's difficulties, all of life's sorrows, and yet still be of good cheer. This is why Jesus reiterated it. This is why He said at the end of his discourse, these things I have spoken to you that in me you may have peace. In the world you will have tribulation. But be of good cheer. I've overcome the world. Now I'm not suggesting for a moment that we will not have difficulties and sorrow and all sorts of downcast feelings. Indeed we will in this present evil age. Indeed we will. Life is full of difficulties. There's not one of us that doesn't know something of sadness from sickness or poverty or lost dreams or the forsaking of loved ones or death. Life in this present evil age is a veil of tears. It is. It's sorrowful. And yet we have this joy that God provides to us to strengthen us as we remember what God Himself has provided to us. Our salvation. Our justification. Righteousness. The righteousness of the Lord Jesus Christ given to you, an undeserving sinner, placed upon you. And you are welcomed into that fellowship of love that has existed from all of eternity between the Father and the Son. As we meditate upon those things, strength to us. And we need that strength in this life of difficulty. We need to meditate on and think about the glorious end that awaits us. The joy in full that we will experience when there will be sorrow no more. When there will be no more sin. When there will be no more evil flesh to contend with. When there will be no more Satan. There will be no more sadness. All those things will be a thing of the past. on that day when we're presented faultless before the presence of His glory with exceeding joy. And so it's essential to God's people while they're here persevering in this life to have this joy. For it's this joy, beloved, which God has given to us that, again, it changes our perspective on this life. And it's one of the greatest safeguards against the attacks of the world, the flesh, and the devil. So what is the joy of the Lord? It's the joy that Christ Himself knew, this heavenly joy, and the same joy that He produces in our hearts in this age that we'll experience at the fullest in the age to come. Why are we to have it? So that God is glorified in our lives and so that it acts as a safeguard for us as we persevere in this life. Very well, but how are we to maintain it? How do we maintain this joy? Some of us in this room for sure probably know what the joy of the Lord is and why we should have it, and yet keeping it and maintaining it is so difficult in this life. Indeed it is, because we contend with sin, and we contend with our own emotions, and we contend with the temptations of the devil. So how do we maintain it? Well, look in our text in verse 13. Notice what Jesus says. He says, but now I come to you that these things, these things I speak in the world so that they may have my joy fulfilled in themselves. The grammar used here suggests cause and effect. Cause and effect. These things I'm speaking in their midst. I'm speaking it audibly. I'm telling them all these wonderful things that I've prayed. I'm praying them out loud from verses 1 down through 12 and then also as we continue through His prayer. All these things, that's the cause. And the result will be their joy. How do we maintain this joy? It's by knowing these things. You see, Christ here, He was telling them what He had done for them and what He would do for them and He gives them assurance by His words that they are being welcomed into this relationship of love that existed from all of eternity. And He also assures them that they would be kept by His power as they continued their pilgrimage in a hostile world. He prays these things. He prays them audibly. And so the key to maintaining the joy of the Lord is to know these things. To know what God has done for us. That's the first key, loved ones. And we can't ever lose sight of that. Knowing what God has done for us. Realizing our position in the Lord Jesus Christ. Knowing that this joy, it's a byproduct of all that God has done for us. We must focus upon those things. It's not focusing upon how much we love God, but rather focusing upon how much God loves us. Not focusing upon how I feel about God, but rather how God feels about me. His love, His eternal love, this attribute of God by which He is eternally moved to communicate Himself to us, His people. Meditating upon that. Nothing will bring us down and make us unhappy and miserable more quickly than focusing upon our failures. When you realize that your love for the Lord is weak and you realize that your love for the Lord is faint and it's poor and it's unworthy, stop right there and stop thinking about your love and start thinking that in spite of all of your love's poverty and just weakness, that God loves you. That He loves you. Look to the evidence of the cross. This place that He sent His Son for you. You didn't deserve it. You're a sinner. And yet He sent His righteous Son to live obediently to the law of God so that all of His righteousness would be laid upon you. That's the evidence of God's love. The cross. And there He rose again from the dead for you. So in the midst of your frustration and thinking, I don't love God enough. Stop there. You can never love God enough. That's why He sent His Son. He loves you. He loves you. And He's proved it by the cross and the resurrection. We need to know this love. But the only way we'll know this love of God and know the things that He has revealed to us is by knowing the Scriptures and knowing theology. Loved ones, it doesn't come from osmosis. God uses means. And so we attend the means of grace. We come to church. We hear the Gospel proclaimed week in and week out. Two times even every Lord's Day. The more the better. We hear this glorious message of salvation that is the power to salvation proclaimed to you over and over and over again. We need to be in a church that preaches the Gospel to hear it, to maintain this joy of the Lord. And also, seeing the sacraments administered rightly, partaking of the sacraments, this visible Gospel, visible before our eyes, wine and bread. The more the better, the more often the better. Because we need to maintain this joy. We need to know these things. These things. And also understanding these things. Catechism. Learning. Being able to connect the dots. Children, I know many of you, you get so tired of catechism. So tired of having to memorize the same old stuff year in and year out at the dinner table or during catechism on Sunday. But you know what? Right now it might just be a bunch of information packed into your head, but there's coming a day when you're going to draw upon that. It's like a well of water being filled up for you right now. And someday, someday, you'll need to draw upon that and you will more and more the older you get. You'll need to know where your joy comes from. Where comes my comfort? And there, like a snap, like a bolt of lightning. Oh, yeah. What is your only comfort in life and in death? Well, that I'm not my own, but belong, body and soul, life and in death, to my faithful Savior, Jesus Christ. He's fully paid for all my sins with His precious blood and has set me free from all the tyranny of the devil. He also watches over me in such a way that not a hair can fall from my head without the will of my Father in heaven. In fact, all things must work together for my salvation. Because I belong to Him, Christ, by His Holy Spirit, assures me of eternal life and makes me heartily willing and ready from henceforth to live unto Him. Oh, yeah. Oh, those years at the dinner table. There it is. Refocused where your joy is. And fathers, catechize your kids. Teach them so they know these things. Because they're going to need them the older they get to draw upon them to maintain the joy of the Lord that is strength to them. So how do we maintain the joy of the Lord? It's knowing these things. Knowing these things. But also, we must avoid concentrating on our own feelings. We must be mindful of every other source of joy. Now look, every one of us knows the troubling feelings, to some degree or another, of depression and discouragement. And often we don't even know why we're experiencing them or where they came from. We're just discouraged. But because our feelings can be so deceptive, we can't concentrate on our feelings. Rather, we need to refocus. Okay, where is this feeling? Where am I losing? How come I don't have this joy? What's going on? Right there, we need to refocus upon the source of our joy and look to Him. Now look, this is not some kind of Christian pop psychology. It's not some method of self-help. It's not what you hear on Tony Robbins late at night. It's not anything crazy like that. This is the method that the psalmist uses. It's the method of the psalmist himself. As we sang that rendition of Psalm 42. The psalmist himself, I'll read for you. You can look there if you like. Yearning for God in the midst of difficulty. He cries out in Psalm 42 and then he comes to verse 5 and he says, Why are you cast down, O my soul? And why are you disquieted within me? Hope in God, for I shall yet praise Him for the help of His countenance. Do you see what he's doing there? Right there, he's taking himself in hand, as it were. He's saying, whoa, wait a minute. Why are you so cast down? Why are you discouraged? Why are you depressed? Why are you disquieted? And then, he gives himself the remedy. He says, hope in God. Hope in God. For I shall yet praise Him for the help of His countenance. And the psalmist does this three times. He does it again in verse 11. Why are you cast down, O my soul? And why are you disquieted within me? Hope in God. For I shall yet praise Him for the help of my countenance and my God. He does it again in Psalm 43. It's this internal conflict and this contending that we have to do inwardly. Now, as Reformed Christians, we often get a little suspicious when we hear the word inward. When we think of our faith being inward, that doesn't sound right. And that's right that we should be suspicious about that. Because our faith is outward. We have an outward religion. The Gospel comes outside of us in the Lord Jesus Christ. and we look to Him. Our faith is extrospective, not introspective. We don't gaze at our navels. We look to Christ. And yet there still is this inward conflict that goes on because the Holy Spirit takes that Gospel and He puts it in our hearts and we struggle against sin throughout this life. And so meditating on the things that we should, looking to God and His Gospel and His love towards us, We still have to fight through these feelings of doubt and questions and sin. We have to contend against ourselves as the psalmist did. John Calvin, commenting on these psalms, he said this. He said, The best way to overcome Satan is not to go out of ourselves, but to maintain an internal conflict against the desires of our own hearts. You see, our hearts are so sinful, we don't even know our own hearts. He continues, he says, Whenever, therefore, such a state of indifference and faint-heartedness shall seize upon us, let's remember that to govern and subdue the desires of their hearts and especially to contend against the feelings of distrust, which are natural to all, is a conflict to which the godly are not unfrequently called. You see, Calvin's saying this is the Christian life. contending against our feelings, contending against distrust and sorrow and being depressed and discouraged and refocusing upon Christ. And Calvin knew this firsthand. He's not writing this as some European intellect in his ivory tower. He's bouncing theories around. Calvin was a pastor. And Calvin had a hard life. He had so many sicknesses and diseases and ailments. He was chased out of towns. He was forsaken by friends. He buried all his children in infancy. He buried a wife. He had life hard. He died young. He knew what it was like to contend against our own feelings of distrust just as the psalmist did. He continues. He says, David very well expresses the power and nature of hope by these words, I shall yet praise Him, for it has the effect of elevating our thoughts to the contemplation of the grace of God when it is hidden from our view. That's often the Christian life, isn't it? We know what God has done for us, but sometimes it's hidden from our view, like a fog that comes in because of our feelings. And there is where we need to contend with ourselves and refocus our eyes upon what Christ has done for us. Knowing these things that He has revealed to us. His love towards us. The glorious end that awaits us. All our sin washed away. His continued love towards us as we struggle against sin in this life. That's what we need to meditate upon. We must be watchful of ourselves. Not allowing ourselves to be overcome with despair. Fix your eyes upon Him. Rejoice in the Lord, loved ones. Rejoice in Him. Meditate on who He is and this great salvation He has provided to us on the glorious end that awaits us. For that's what raises us to our feet during life's difficulties and sorrows. That's what gives us strength even as we face death itself. Amen.