Christ’s High Priestly Prayer

And if you would, please, let's open our Bibles to the Gospel of John, John chapter 17, John chapter 17, and we'll be reading the 17th chapter in its entirety, which is Christ's high priestly prayer. So John chapter 17, let's give attention to the reading of God's Word, John chapter 17, beginning in verse 1, hear now the word of the Lord. 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 have given him. And this is eternal life that they know you, the only true God and Jesus Christ whom you have sent. I glorified you on earth, having accomplished the work that you gave me to do. And now, Father, glorify me in your own presence with the glory that I had with you before the world existed. 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 am 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 am no longer in the world, but they are in the world, and I am 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. I do not ask for these only, but also for those who will believe in me through their word, that they may all be one, just as you, Father, are in me, and I in you, that they also may be in us, so that the world may believe that you have sent me. The glory that you have given me, I have given to them, that they may be one, even as we are one. I in them and you in me so that they may become perfectly one so that the world may know that you sent me and loved them even as you loved me. 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 loved me before the foundation of the world. O righteous Father, even though the world does not know you, I know you and these know that you have sent me. I made known to them your name, and I will continue to make it known that the love with which you have loved me may be in them, and I in them. May God add his blessing to this reading from his holy and inspired word. I can remember as a 10-year-old child being glued to the television set as I was watching the 1980 Olympic Winter Games in Lake Placid, New York, And I was particularly entranced to the television that particular day because I was watching the U.S. hockey team beat the Soviet team, which was something of a miracle, at least as Al Michaels, the sports announcer that was calling that game, declared it. It was a miracle because at that point in time, the Soviet hockey team, from 1960 up until 1980, was virtually undefeated. They won 27 games, tied one, and lost one in 20 years, which is an amazing feat. In fact, over those two decades, a number of all-star hockey teams had been assembled, and the Soviet team took them apart piece by piece. And one of the reasons I think that these all-star teams were unable to defeat them was the fact that they played an entirely different style of game. You see, the All-Stars were all incredibly talented, but they were essentially a group of individuals, all individually trying to accomplish the goal of defeating the other team. They were skating on the ice together, but they weren't necessarily playing together as a single unit. I think that, at that particular time, was the genius of the play of the Soviet team. They were not simply playing around one or two incredibly gifted players, but rather they all worked together for a common goal. They were not interested in exalting themselves, but rather seeking the goal of winning. And so that's how ultimately the U.S. hockey team was able to defeat them is because the coach for the U.S. team changed the entire style of play. Instead of focusing around one or two or three particularly gifted players and the effort to try to carry them to victory, they all worked together as one cohesive unit. They were a team. They were united. And I think particularly in a fallen world, any time that you can find sinful people who are willing to set aside their own personal motivations, their own personal desires, their own personal goals for glory, to work towards a common goal, it is perhaps something of a miracle, if only maybe a temporal miracle or if only a natural miracle. In other words, not something of divine origin, but something unique. This is something that I think that Christ himself recognized and knew very well because when he was interrogated by the hostile crowds and when he was accused of casting out demons by the power of Satan, he said, a house divided against itself cannot stand. In other words, any group that has internal division is never going to be able to accomplish whatever goals it has set before him. And so in this particular case, we find that when the Lord Jesus takes the opportunity to pray, not only for his disciples, but to pray for the church, and not simply the church during that first century context, but ultimately for the church throughout the ages. In other words, to pray for you and to pray for me, to pray for us. One of the chief focal points of his high priestly prayer was for the church's unity. That we would not be a house divided, but rather that we would be united together in our cause for Christ and his gospel. But the question that we have to ask ourselves is, what foundation does Christ build our unity upon? And the answer comes, I think, in the first part of Christ's high priestly prayer. And so what I want us to do this evening is we'll first look at the initial portion of Christ's high priestly prayer so that we can see the foundation that Christ lays for our unity. And then secondly, we will look at what Christ has to say about the unity that is supposed to exist in the church and how it relates to the first part of Christ's prayer. Now, don't get all excited. It's only two points. but it still will take as long as a three-point sermon. So just keep that in mind. So let's focus first upon what Christ has to say in the first part of the prayer, which comes to us in verses 1 through 8. As Christ stood at the precipice of going to the cross and plunging into the valley of God's wrath to suffer for our sins, He naturally engaged in prayer, I think, to seek the strength and assurance from his heavenly Father. And he asked his Father that in this hour, in the hour of his suffering, to glorify him so that he could in turn glorify the Father. Because in the end, as we see in verse 2, what Christ was seeking to do was to accomplish the work of salvation that the Father had sent him to do. The Father had sent the Son into the far country to redeem a chosen people, a chosen race. And this is what he was setting out to do. To give eternal life to all whom you have given. But we have to recognize that eternal life was not some sort of ill-defined goal, Some sort of ill-defined, paradisical kind of venture, but rather, it is something that focuses exclusively upon Christ. We read in verse 3, And this is eternal life, that they know you, the only true God, and Jesus Christ, whom you have sent. So here Christ focuses the tension, in a sense, exclusively upon himself and upon the Father. but ultimately upon the one true God because he is saying that it was with him where salvation rested. Recall Christ's words earlier from the 14th chapter, verse 6, when he told all of those who were gathered about him that, I am the way, the truth, and the life. No one comes to the Father except through me. No one comes to the Father except through me. I think that we have to recognize the significance of Jesus' statement and how he so narrows the gates of heaven itself exclusively upon himself. It was C.S. Lewis who said that the Lord Jesus gives us a trilemma, not a dilemma, not a choice or a difficult choice between two things, but a trilemma, a difficult choice between three things. He says, Jesus in these statements tells us essentially that he is either Lord, liar, or lunatic. We cannot claim that Jesus is merely a good teacher. I think so many people in the world are willing to admit, well, sure, okay, Jesus was a good teacher. He was a good man. He taught good principles. He taught us to love one another, to obey the golden rule. But Jesus claims far more than that. Lewis said that anybody who would claim to be the only way of salvation and that salvation was exclusively through him and it wasn't true would on the one hand have to be a liar. A liar of demonic proportions. Because only something inspired by the demonic would say, yes, I am the only way. Out of all of the billions of people that have existed in this world, I am the sole exclusive way, if it were not true. He says, or Jesus would be a lunatic. Because maybe he wasn't lying, but maybe he was mad. Maybe he was insane. Because why else would somebody claim to be the only way of salvation if it were not true. Lewis says that someone who claims to be able to save and was not able to would be mad on the level of somebody claiming to be a poached egg. He says, or he indeed is the King of kings and the Lord of lords, and we have to bow down to him because he is truly the only way of salvation. And this is where Christ goes. We cannot say that he is a good man, that he is a good teacher. We certainly cannot say he is lying. We cannot say that he is mad. Rather, he is Lord and Savior. But notice how in verse 4, I think Jesus begins to move into explaining as to why he is the only way. Why salvation must rest exclusively upon his shoulders. He says in verse 4, I glorified you on earth, having accomplished the work that you gave me to do. You see, Jesus says, I and I alone have done the work that has been required of me. Think of Adam. God told Adam, don't eat from the tree. Have you ever thought about it? Adam had a one-sentence Bible. Don't eat from the tree. He would have gathered each and every Sabbath, hear now the reading of the word, don't eat from the tree, thus ends the sermon for today, close the book, move on, very simple, that he was faithless, he disobeyed. Think of the 613 commands that God gave to the Israelites, and we know that if Adam could not obey just one, that Israel certainly would not obey 613. Think of all of the great saints, Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob, King David, Solomon, the prophets. None of them. None of them ever received that bellowing voice out of the heavens when Jesus came up out of the water and said, this is my son in whom I am well pleased. Jesus was telling his father in this prayer, I have glorified you on earth, having accomplished the work that you gave me to do. In other words, salvation rests exclusively in Christ, not only because he is God in the flesh, but because he and he alone accomplished the work that the Father gave him to do. To borrow language from the Westminster Standards, which I hope is okay, I know this is a URC church, but Jesus gave his personal, perpetual, and perfect obedience to every jot and tittle of the law, to every command that his Father gave to him. So Jesus, as he is praying this high priestly prayer on your behalf and on mine, he lays that foundation stone, that perfect work and obedience to the Father's will. Think, for example, from Philippians 2 and that gorgeous passage of Scripture that the apostle Paul wrote. It says that though he was in the form of God, he did not consider it equality with God a thing to be grasped. I think it was Adam who grasped and tried to grasp equality with God. Christ did not consider equality with God a thing to be grasped, but instead made himself nothing, taking on the form of a servant. And he was obedient, obedient to the point of death, even death on the cross. And so what does Paul say because of this obedience unto death, because of his willing humbling of himself to carry out the work that the Father had given him? And therefore God has highly exalted him and bestowed on him the name that is above every name so that at the name of Jesus every knee should bow in heaven and on earth and under the earth and every tongue confess that Jesus Christ is Lord to the glory of the Father. Think of that perfect obedience. I think what is difficult for us to do, particularly at this point in the passage, is I think we can contemplate to a certain extent the nature of Christ's obedience, but I think it can be difficult for us to contemplate the depths to which he condescended in order to carry that out. Because who of us knows what the pre-incarnate glory of Christ is like? We can guess. We can think about it. but it's difficult because it's a glory that far exceeds the greatest beauty of anything that we've ever seen or contemplated here on the earth. But the Gospel of John does give us a little bit of a clue. In the 12th chapter of John, where Jesus is speaking, John interjects a comment about Isaiah chapter 6. And there in John chapter 12, verse 41, speaking of Christ, he says, Isaiah said these things, referring to Isaiah chapter 6, Isaiah said these things because he saw his glory and spoke of him. In other words, John tells us that Isaiah didn't see the glory of God in the temple that day, but rather he saw the glory of Christ, the pre-incarnate glory of Christ, The glory that Christ shared with the Father before the foundations of the world. A glory where simply the train of Christ's robe filled the temple and caused Isaiah to tremble in fear for his very safety because he knew that he was in the presence of holiness. And he called a curse upon himself because he knew that he was unworthy to be in the presence of this holy God, this thrice holy God. Contrast that picture of Isaiah chapter 6 and the glory that we see unveiled there and then contrast it and compare it with the ignominy of the cross, the shame, the suffering, the abject dereliction. And we begin to get a glimpse of the depths to which Christ condescended not only to be obedient to the will of his Father, but also to redeem us, to redeem you. Such is the unity of will that exists between Father, Son, and Holy Spirit. So much so that the Father says, go, and the Son says, I will go. Such that the Father says, go to the cross, and the Son says, I will go to the cross. Yet not my will but thine be done, says Jesus. And even at the nadir of his suffering, when he cried out, My God, my God, why hast thou forsaken me? Notice that he still says, My God. He was still obedient, even in the depths of his suffering. And so what we must realize is that this is the very foundation, this is the bedrock upon which Christ builds the unity of the church. The unity of the Father, Son, and Holy Spirit is the basis for the unity of the church, not only in terms of the unity that we share one with another, but ultimately the unity that the church itself shares with the triune God. a unified triune God redeems a diverse group of people ultimately to unify them in Christ and then to unite them to himself and it's Christ God in the flesh that prays for this very thing in the rest of his prayer but it's something that is ultimately founded upon his all-sufficient work and obedience that obedience even unto death and so this brings us to the second point, which covers verses 9 through 26, from verse 9 to the end of the chapter. And I think that at least to me, and I hope to you, that one of the most humbling points in Christ's prayer is when he says that he does not pray for the world. I think such a statement undoubtedly rubs against the grain of the world. I mean, we're a world that demands egalitarian ideals. It's in our very founding documents for this country that all men are created equal. You know, with the recent pay-for-play college enrollment scandal that is plastered all over the news these days, people find it outrageous that the wealthy bought access for their children, for their privileged children, and people recognize, hey, that's unfair. That's not equal. That's an unfair advantage. And yet this is the very thing that Christ does, is that he prays for his bride. He prays for the church, not for the world, because he came to save his bride. All mine are yours, verse 10, and yours are mine and I am glorified in them. He says, I'm praying for them because these are the people whom you, O Father, have given to me. These are the ones whom I love. These are the ones whom I cherish. These are the ones for whom I will lay down my life. I will suffer and I will die. But important to note here I think are the three chief things for which Christ prays. First of all, he was letting his disciples know, he was letting the church know that he was going to leave. You see that in verse 11. And so he prays for the church's preservation. He prays for our protection and care. In other words, in his absence, he was saying, oh, Father, protect and preserve them. In the Heidelberg Catechism, in question 51, we read the following, how does the glory of Christ, our head, benefit us? Remember here, remember Christ's prayer in the first part where he says, Father, glorify me in this hour so that I can glorify you. I glorified you on earth, verse 4, having accomplished the work that you have given me to do. How does the glory of Christ our head benefit us, the catechism says. And it answers, first, by his Holy Spirit he pours out heavenly gifts upon us, his members. Second, by his power he defends and preserves us against all enemies. See, it's the glory of Christ by which he preserves and protects us. I think we could put it in simpler terms saying that Christ is saying, if I worked this hard to redeem you, if I gave up my life to redeem you, then I will undoubtedly see to your care and to your preservation and ultimately to your salvation. Now, I don't think that this means that the church will never suffer. I think we could easily misread it and think, well, wait a minute. Has Christ's prayer failed because the church does suffer? And this past week, I find it disturbing that some 137 Christians were killed by Muslim militants. That has not seen any press in comparison with what happened in New Zealand. I don't think that Christ is saying, oh, the church will never suffer. But rather, he is saying that through his prayer, the church ultimately will be saved. Nothing will keep us from the blessings of eternal life. And yes, even in this life, we can hope and pray for his physical protection. But ultimately, it's that by his power, he defends and preserves us against all enemies. And the chiefest of our enemies is death itself. And so Christ, in his absence, wanted to ensure the church's preservation. And so in this prayer, he prays for our care and for our protection. But secondly, he prays for our preservation in the Father's word. And we see that in verses 17 through 19. Sanctify them in your truth. This is so important that we recognize this. Note how closely this parallels Christ's relationship to the Father. The Father gave Christ his word, go. And the Son obeyed those words, every single jot and tittle, personally, perfectly, and perpetually. And so the fact that Christ prays for our preservation in the word is so that we too would be attuned to the word of God. because it's through the Word of God that it enables us to know what it is that God desires and how it is that we can please Him. So in other words, Christ is not praying merely that we would acquire this knowledge, that we would simply have it. In other words, that we're just downloading data far from it. Rather, through the Spirit and through the preservation of the Word, through our knowledge of the Word, the Word and the Spirit ultimately give birth to obedience and holiness. And this is what was one of the ligaments between the Father and the Son. The Son being obedient to the will of the Father. And so Christ is now wanting to see, and through his prayer is ensuring that it happens, is that there is the same ligament of obedience between the church and God. We cannot know what it is that we're supposed to do unless we know what God's Word is, and so therefore Christ prays for our preservation in the Word. And so ultimately we see that the church's obedience ultimately manifests the unity of the triune God, not only in terms of the unity that we would have between the church and God, but ultimately as well the unity that would exist and should exist among us individuals as we are gathered together as Christ's body. But then third and finally, Christ prays for our unity. He says this in verses 21 and following, that they may all be one just as you, Father, are in me and I in you, that they also may be in us, so that the world may believe that you have sent me. The glory that you have given me, I have 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 love them even as you loved me. I think this is one of those passages that just shows the intimate nature of the relationship, not only of the triune God, but also of the intimacy of the relationship that is supposed to exist between the triune God and the church. The triune God in us, and we in the triune God. There's a sense in which we can say that the church's unity with God mirrors the unity among Father, Son, and Holy Spirit. Just as Christ was obedient to the Father's will, so the church's obedience reveals our unity with the triune God. The intimate union among Father, Son, and Holy Spirit finds an analogy in the unity that we share with God. But what we must recognize is that this unity, this obedience, Ultimately, we can say this love, this love is something that finds its source in the triune God. And we find our guide as to what God desires in his word. In other words, we mustn't forget that the very lifeblood of our obedience lies in the triune God. More specifically, in the intercessory work of Christ. And in terms here of our sermon this evening, in the very prayer that Christ prays for you. that is where their fountain of grace lies. It's not that you somehow say, okay, I've got to muster up enough obedience so that I can somehow unite myself to God, so that I can somehow join in the cause. Rather, it is that Christ has poured out his life on our behalf. He has bathed us in the love of God. He has poured out the Holy Spirit upon us to enable us to respond in obedience and in love which ultimately manifests the unity of church to the triune God. Moreover, this is a unity that not only binds us closer to the triune God, but think of it this way, that as each one of us as individuals seek to obey God, seek to love him, as we draw closer to him, we all draw closer to one another. The closer we draw unto the triune God, the closer we draw unto one another, the more we love God, the more we obey his will. Not only do we reveal the unity that the church is supposed to have with God, but it also shows the world that we are united together as one body. Note how Christ's prayer for unity radically differs from so many other supposed foundations for unity. Unity will never come from the world. Unity will never come from the world. So often in church history, you see how the church has chased after the world. I think in this regard, we can say, for example, that the Internet is a new Tower of Babel. It's the world's effort to try to bring some sort of sense of unity, to somehow connect the world together. Yet all the Internet is, really, is millions of voices crying out, look at me, look at me, a bunch of individuals seeking to try to control the flow of information. It's just a cacophony of distorted voices vying control for the global conversation. Unity will never come from peripheral theological beliefs or for following great heroes as much as we may venerate them and appreciate them. Think, for example, of the Apostle Paul's rebuke of the Corinthians. He writes in 1 Corinthians chapter 3, verses 3 and following, for while there is jealousy and strife among you, are you not of the flesh and behaving in a human way? For when one says I follow Paul and another I follow Apollos, are you not being merely human? Now don't get me wrong. I have many theological heroes as I suspect you do as well. And if you don't, maybe you should get a few more. But I have pictures all over my office. Having pictures when you love books is very difficult because the books usually take up all the space. But I've got pictures that are up really high on the wall. I got tons of pictures of theologians, heroes of mine. I really appreciate their work. I'm in awe of their insight, of their knowledge, of their command of the scriptures. But any time that a hero becomes a substitute for Christ, the hero turns into an idol. Any time that we think one of those heroes will bring about unity, We are off the beaten path of Scripture. And we are fleeing far from Christ's prayer for unity. Any time that we go to a hero and that hero no longer points us to Christ, when that hero no longer says, may I decrease and may he increase, we are departing from Christ's prayer and from the only true one who can bring about our unity. Such an ethos is ultimately merely human and does not rest in the intercessory work of Christ or in the power of his high priestly prayer. So brothers and sisters, we certainly need to seek the unity of the body of Christ. And I think we need to seek it so desperately. There are thousands of denominations thousands of denominations the church has been splintered into so many shards but yet this does not mean that all is lost because ultimately the church's unity does not rest in us but it rests in the finished work of Christ it rests in the power of his high priestly prayer and don't be discouraged if you don't think you see it because, you know, we hear read of Christ's prayer and we hear him saying, Glorify me. Return to me the glory that I once had with you and shared with you before the foundation of the world. And when we see unity, we hope to see it and we want to see it with glory and we want to see it with power. Beloved in Christ, that day will come. That day will come when every knee will bow and every tongue confess that Jesus is Lord to the glory of God the Father. But in the meantime, we have to recognize that we will only see the unity of the body of Christ with the eyes of faith. And that it may seem ordinary, it may seem common, but in this splintered, sin-fallen world, we find the unity of Christ's high priestly prayer manifest when brothers and sisters dwell together in the church in harmony. When brothers and sisters in Christ in the church do not allow small things to divide them. When brothers and sisters in Christ are willing to forgive one another their sins and love each other in spite of the wrong that they may suffer. The unity of Christ's prayer is manifest when a child turns from his own selfish ways and professes his or her faith in Christ. The unity of Christ's prayer is manifest when the church stands for Christ's word in a world that will rain down its scorn upon us. We can behold the glory of the unity of the triune God in the church here on earth when we look at these things through the eyes of faith. So, beloved, as we reflect upon this prayer, I think our response should undoubtedly be one of heartfelt worship for Jesus Christ, our great high priest. Think back to the days of Israel of old, that when the high priest used to go into the Holy of Holies, the people would wait with bated breath, wait for the high priest to emerge from the Holy of Holies to signal that the sacrifice had been received and their sins for the year had been forgiven. Beloved in Christ, let us wait with bated breath as we eagerly look forward for the return of the Lord Jesus Christ when our great high priest will emerge from the Holy of Holies. The consummation of all things will happen. The dead in Christ will rise. And when Christ will gloriously vindicate his church. But in the meantime, we should rejoice in the hope and the knowledge that at this very moment, at this very moment, God in the flesh, your Savior, is praying for you now. And we see that prayer reflected here in John chapter 17. Not only has he prayed then, but he is praying for you now. Praying for your preservation. praying for your sanctity in the word, praying for unity in his church. So our great desire should be that on the foundation of Christ's work and upon his priestly intercession, the very lifeblood of our salvation, that we would manifest the unity of the triune God here and now. Pray that we would all seek this unity by clinging fast to God's word and pray that we would manifest this unity to the glory of our triune God. Let's bow together in a word of prayer. Father God, we are grateful indeed for you are mighty to save. And we rejoice, O Lord, in the knowledge that while we individually have been redeemed, that you have redeemed us and united us in the Lord Jesus Christ, that we might be one body, that there would be one cup, that there would be one bread, and that there would be one Savior. Oh, Father, we pray that you would forgive us for the ways in which we bring disunity to your body, whether it be through gossip, whether it be because we're unwilling to forgive one another, whether it be because we are filled with self-righteous pride, Perhaps because we elevate heroes, O Lord, to a place that they should not be. Father, forgive us for these things. And help us to recognize that unity begins with the one who looks us back in the mirror. Forgive us, we pray. By the power of your Spirit and through the gospel of Christ, may we lay aside our selfish desires, sacrifice that which we deem important to us and put your will first and foremost in our lives that we would seek the unity of the body of Christ that we would draw nigh unto thee and that in so drawing unto you that you would draw us closer to one another that the world would know us not only for the love that we share one with another but ultimately, O Lord, for the love that we share and have for you, our Redeemer and Savior. We pray and ask all of these things to the glory of the triune God. In the name of Christ, amen.