John chapter 17 and verse 20. This is the Word of God. The Lord Jesus Christ says, Neither
pray I for these alone, but for them also which shall believe
on me through their word. that they all may be one as thou,
Father, art in me and I in thee, that they also may be one in
us, that the world may believe that thou hast sent me. And the
glory which thou gavest me I have given them, that they may be
one even as we are one. I in them and thou in me, that
they may be made perfect in one, and that the world may know that
thou hast sent me and hast loved them as thou hast loved me. Amen. May the Lord bless this
reading to us also. I do believe that this high priestly
prayer of our Lord Jesus for his church and his people climbs
to yet higher wonder and splendour as it approaches its conclusion. It's as if it flares in brightness
as it reaches its end. The Lord Jesus tells us here
that he has sought for all his church, all of those things which
he has been praying about for his immediate disciples. So he has been praying in many
respects, particularly for his disciples. But he says to his
father and to his disciples, Do not interpret this narrowly. Do not interpret that these things
I have requested, these things I've asked for, be for them alone,
but understand these things expansively for all my people, for the church
in every age and all around the world. I love the opportunity
that we have in these Old Testament passages that we read to see
the way that the Lord took the gospel beyond the boundaries
of Israel. And it's almost as if even in
those days when primarily God was dealing with Old Testament
Israel as a type and picture of the church, that he yet was
eager to take that message, that gospel truth, beyond the borders
of Israel and even then salt it away in the life's experiences
of men and women around the world. From the utmost parts of the
earth, we're told, this Queen of Sheba came. And the Lord has
always had that bigger picture in view, that his people would
be gathered from all over the world. And here, in the language
of Christ's intercessory prayer, we find that theme being repeated. He specifically, the Lord Jesus
Christ, in this prayer specifically includes you and me. who trust in Him and believe
the Gospel. He is praying for us. The day before the Lord Jesus
Christ, or the night before the Lord Jesus Christ was arrested,
and went to the cross, he took time to pray for us. He said, neither pray I for these
alone. Neither pray I that the spoils
won in the day of battle, that the accomplishments of the cross
be limited, be reserved for these alone. This work of grace and
mercy the substitutionary atonement of the Lord Jesus Christ, the
blood redemption, the sacrifice that he would make, the salvation
that he secured and obtained, the reconciliation. It was for
more than just a few individuals. It is for every believer and
the Lord explicitly makes that point. He says it is for them
also which shall believe on me through the ministry and the
word of the apostles. The great commission was to be,
go ye out into all the world and preach the gospel to every
creature. And that commission, as it was
undertaken by these apostles, carried the word to the ends
of the earth, and the Lord Jesus Christ had his people there,
and he included us. In time and space, he included
us in this prayer. Do you see what the Lord did
here? In praying this prayer in the presence of his disciples,
he informed them, he explicitly tells them that there is a harvest
to come, a flock to be gathered, a people to be converted through
their word. A people to be joined with them,
united to them. in all of the benefits and the
blessings of Christ's labour. So this is a prayer that the
Lord Jesus Christ is praying here. A prayer of expansion and
enlargement. Christ encompasses you and me
in the great accomplishments of grace and the blessings that
he has won. He includes us in the inheritance
of his victory. He tells his people who trust
him, you who believe are beneficiaries of all the covenant rights that
I possess. It's personal. As a believer,
you are numbered amongst those to whom faith has been gifted,
faith has been granted. You could not be more entitled
Had your name been written in letters of gold and signed under
a royal seal, you could not be more entitled than Peter and
James and John and the other apostles. Think of this as the
Lord's last will and testament. Just before he dies, he tells
his father, this is what I want to happen. what I want to be
done with those individuals that are mine. And I repeat, this
is personal. When you go to work, you go as
a redeemed soul washed in the blood of Christ and covered with
his righteousness, heir of his glory. When you go to the shops,
you go as a child of God under his protection. When the Saviour
asks His Father to keep His disciples, to sanctify His apostles, to
preserve His beloved friends, He's speaking about you and me. And all the powers of heaven,
all the angels of God are energised and dedicated to that end. Christ prays for them also which
shall believe on me. If you believe in the Lord Jesus
Christ, this prayer is for you. Now let us be clear on this matter. It is not our faith, it is not
your faith, your believing or mine that earns these blessings. Christ's blood, Christ's death
has earned them. Faith itself is the gift of God
and salvation is all of the Lord. Nevertheless, believing on Christ
What is it he says? Them also which shall believe
on me. Believing on Christ is the mark,
the indicator, the evidence of our interest and union with Christ. It is trusting him and taking
him at his word. Now here's a little aside here,
but I want to say this because very often people become anxious
about these things. Sometimes people ask, How can
I tell if I'm saved? How do I know if I'm one of the
Lord's people? Well, you believe on Christ. That's the answer. You believe
on Christ. Let me put it another way. You
know, I hope, that if you are to be saved in this world from
your sin, It can only be by the merits and by the accomplishments
of Christ on the cross. That's the only ground of hope
that we have. The only ground of hope we have
in this world as sinners is that we will be accepted by God on
the grounds, on the basis of the blood and righteousness of
the Lord Jesus Christ. That's all. Now, if we understand that, then
we understand that our faith is on Christ alone. You believe
on Christ to the exclusion of everything else. It's not Christ
and your church's endorsement. It's not Christ and your good
works. It's not Christ and the recommendation
of your minister. It's not Christ and holy living.
If you glean any Christian assurance from anything you do, It will
not last. It will be here today and gone
tomorrow, and it will be as fickle as you are in yourself. But if you derive all your Christian
assurance from Jesus Christ, who is the same yesterday, today,
and forever, your confidence will be fixed on Him. Our standing
with God is not conditional upon our believing. but upon the efficacy
of Christ's blood to cleanse from all sin and the righteousness
of God to fit us for his presence. Our believing and our faith is
the fruit of God's grace in our lives. So here is the first point
that I want to leave with you today. This prayer of the Lord
Jesus Christ, this prayer is for you who trust and believe
on Christ. This prayer is for you. On the
eve of his crucifixion, the Saviour prayed for you. His thoughts
at this very moment were towards you. His concerns were for you. And his prayers and intercession
with his father were for your spiritual good and glory. You personally, but not you alone. The Lord's prayer was for his
people worldwide, yet to be gathered and bestowed with faith. We mention this from time to
time, but it's a lovely little thought. Isaiah, even in the
Old Testament, Isaiah calls these people, these people for whom
Christ prayed, he calls them the travail of Christ's soul. the travail of Christ's soul,
the people he suffered for in his soul, a discrete number,
a distinct people for whom he died. These were the people loved
of God everlastingly, chosen in Christ before and from the
foundation of the world, and set apart in the Savior, within
the terms, under the terms of the covenant of grace and peace.
They are the reason Christ came into the world. They are the
reason he suffered and died. They are those for whose sake
the wrath of God was endured and punishment for sin was suffered. in the person, in the body, in
the soul of the Lord Jesus Christ. And these people, this group,
this number is the whole body of believers yet to be called
by grace and brought into a living spiritual relationship with God
in Christ. And the Lord is praying for us.
Now I want you to notice this. There is no doubt in Christ's
mind that his covenant people will not be endowed with faith. There's no question, there's
no hesitancy in the Lord's mind as he prays. He knew these people
were safe in the Father's hand and he knew that faith is God's
irresistible gift. Therefore he could pray for them
also which shall believe, knowing full well that they would believe
because he was committing them into the care and into the hand
of his Father. Were salvation determined by
man's free will, the Lord Jesus could not have spoken so decidedly
and assuredly of them also which shall believe. because he couldn't
have had any certainty that any would believe, not if it was
up to man's free will. Do you realise the implications
of that? That the Lord Jesus Christ, if
we truly believe, as so many appear to do these days, in man's
free will, the Lord Jesus could have gone to the cross, suffered
and died, and not one single individual ever be saved. Theoretically,
according to that doctrine. And then the work of Christ would
have been a failure. That's ludicrous. It's impossible. We're speaking about God here.
And Christ had a certainty that those who were the travail of
his soul, those who had been committed into his care in the
covenant of grace, those The Lord Jesus Christ knew that God his Father would
give faith to that people for whom he now was ready to give
his life. Salvation is not of man's free
will, but it is according to the sovereign will of God, so
that Christ, having redeemed God's chosen people, personally
and individually, as He prayed for His disciples and prays for
us, as He had us in view, had us in mind, to a man, to a woman, to a boy,
to a girl could speak confidently. of them also which shall believe,
knowing that the gift of faith would be given to them, and confident
that the divine will to save would be fulfilled in their lives
by the appointed means through the ministry and the preaching
and the word of Christ's own disciples and their successors. The same commit ye to faithful
men, says Paul to Timothy. Because this is the true apostolic
succession. This is the means, the way by
which God gathers his church through that apostolic preaching
that was first preached by the Lord's disciples, the apostles,
and committed to the preaching of faithful men thereafter. Here's the next thing I want
us to note from the Lord's words here. That the Lord prayed specifically
for our union in Christ. The Saviour's request is this,
that they all may be one. He says, I don't preach for these
alone. He says, I'm preaching also for
them which shall believe on me through their word that they
all may be one. This is the Savior's request.
Now, at the risk of being repetitive, I'm going to repeat myself. These
requests made by the Saviour are not favours that he is asking
of his Father. They are his right. They are
Christ's entitlements. In this prayer, our Savior is
claiming the rights due to Him under the terms of the everlasting
covenant of grace and peace. Christ has title to the people
that He redeemed according to the settlement of grace. He has
title in us. We are His. We were given to
Him. set apart, sanctified in the
covenant of grace. We were given to Christ to take
care of, to protect, to redeem, to deliver, to reconcile to God. We are His, and having redeemed
us, we are His possession. He has right, He has title to
the elect. And when the Savior died on the
cross, all the requests listed in this prayer the requests that
he makes of his father for his own glory, that his people might
be kept, that they might be sanctified, that they might be one with the
Father, and that they might be brought into God's presence in
glory. All these requests are claimed
by right being the prize of his redemptive success, the reward
that was given to him for his victory on the cross. And Christ
is here. I've been reluctant to use the
word demands because it's not that God is in any way reluctant. It's not that the Father is in
any way reluctant to fulfill these requests of Christ. But
I'm trying to convey the sense that it's more than a favor,
more than a mere request. As I say, I don't want to say
that these are Christ's demands, but do understand that Christ
is here claiming his right that now the Father go forth in effectual
power to convert and gather in all for whom he died and unite
them to himself. The elect were committed into
the hands of Christ for their recovery from the fall, and having
completed all his covenant duties, I have finished the work which
thou gavest me to do, having completed all his covenant duties,
the Lord returns the travail of his soul, the people committed
into his care, returns them to his father. He places them back
in his father's hands. He commits the fruit of his labor
into the hands of his father, first for safekeeping. No one
can pluck them out of my father's hands. And second, for the application
of the covenant blessings that he has won. Remember what he
said in verse 10, earlier in our studies in John 17, verse
10. He says, all mine are thine,
and thine are mine. And this is the Lord's foremost
request, that they all may be one. Not just the disciples and
those who would believe after them as being a group of men
and women, but that they Disciples and those that would believe
on him would be one together in the body of Christ. Here the
Savior requires his Father to join each member of his body,
his mystical body, to himself. The church, we've seen this before,
the church is Christ's body. And part by part, member by member,
it is being revealed and united to Christ as men and women and
boys and girls are brought to faith and trust in their Saviour.
Brought to believe the Gospel. Our union with Christ is dear
to him. It's important to him. It's of
the essence of his work. It flows from his love towards
us. And by this union, our spiritual
understanding, our conversion is brought into effect. Spiritual blessings flow to us. And our engagement with that
spiritual realm is initiated, not because it's the very start
of it. Remember that we're loved before
the world began, we're chosen in Christ, we're united to Him. But our experience of these things
is what the Lord is praying His Father would go about the business
of doing, that He would bring us to the knowledge of the truth,
And that is what the Lord is asking here. This is the enablement
of spiritual life and understanding in individuals, in you and in
me. A sense of peace granted through
forgiveness of sins, a knowledge of the love of God inspired in
our souls. What we never knew before, now
we begin to understand. And this is the work of the Holy
Spirit in regeneration and the new birth. It's experienced as
we live and walk by faith. We're made aware that we are
brethren by adoption. We're children in the family.
We're heirs of a legacy. We're spouse in a marriage. We're members of Christ's household.
We're a body and he is our head. All these are good and suitable
Bible types, Bible pictures. But in the end, the point is
this, that we are so closely, really, and inseparably united
to Christ, that one simple scriptural statement covers them all. And
it's what Christ is asking for here. We are one with Him. and we are everlastingly joined
to Him. This is the work of the Father. This is the work of God at the
request of Christ as we are made one with Him. Our union is with
Christ and with our brothers and sisters in Christ. We're
united spiritually. We're united in doctrine. We're
united in the common knowledge of Christ. United in brotherly
and sisterly affection, in Christian love and fellowship. Now we're very different people.
We come from different places. We've had different experiences,
different journeys in bringing us to this point. But ours is
a common salvation. and we share the blessing and
the goodness of God, which is the same to all. Paul tells the
Ephesians, I mentioned it yesterday in the little note, he tells
the Ephesians, we have one Lord, one faith, one baptism, one God
and father of all, who is above all and through all and in all.
So whether we're old or young, whether we're rich or poor, whether
we're strong or frail, whether we're educated or less so, we
are wise unto salvation. We have different nationalities,
perhaps even different languages, but we are one in Christ. As
believers, our union derives from our union with Christ. Union
in his death, union in his resurrection, and it comes as the Father's
gift to us In our conversion and in our growth in grace, it
comes as the benefits of the covenant of grace. Here's the
third point that I want to leave with you today. Our Savior tells
his Father that he has already in his ministry to these disciples,
our Saviour tells his Father that he has already supplied
the foundational truth to enable and facilitate this union that
he asks his father to accomplish. It's kind of complicated and
convoluted what I've just said there. But what I'm trying to
say is this. He says, the glory which thou
gavest me, I have given them. Now, the way that the father
unites Christ's body to the head is through the gospel. And when
Christ says, the glory which thou gavest me, I have given
them, that glory I understand to be the gospel. The gospel
is a gospel of glory to sinners. It's a gospel of glory because
it has a glorious author. It teaches glorious things. It reveals glorious truths. And
it points us to our glorious end in heaven. The Church of
Jesus Christ glories in the gospel because the gospel reveals God's
grace by the sacrifice of the Son. So that with Paul, we understand
what is meant by glorying in the cross of our Lord Jesus Christ. And that is the gospel by which
we are called to obtain the glory of our Lord Jesus Christ. And
that is the glory, the gospel had been committed by the Lord
Jesus Christ to his disciples during this three years of ministry. The glory which thou gavest me,
the words, the glorious words, the glorious truths that the
father gave to the son to convey and commit to his people, that
gospel of glory that glorious gospel had been committed to
his disciples. And that is what they were then
to take to the ends of the earth and preach. And here, no doubt,
the Lord Jesus teaches his disciples and us the primacy of the gospel
in our union with him. This information that the Lord
Jesus Christ is speaking here, and we are right in saying that
this is the prayer of the Lord Jesus Christ to his Father. But the Savior isn't informing
his Father about things. He's informing the disciples
and he's informing us who are benefited by overhearing these
things. It's us that is being communicated
to. And this information, the glory
which thou gavest me, I have given them, can't be spoken for
the Father's sake. The Father knew that Christ had
fulfilled all that he had been given to do. So it must be for
our sake that this information is being revealed, the glory
which thou gavest me, I have given them. The Lord Jesus is
telling his disciples that they must glory in the gospel. Now, I'm not saying that we don't
personally glory in the Lord, but when it comes to evangelism,
when it comes to preaching, when it comes to testimony, when it
comes to witness, when it comes to sharing our hope of eternal
life with others, it's the gospel, the work of Christ, the glory
of the covenant of grace. It is the gospel that takes preeminence. And the disciples were here being
taught the great importance of preaching the Gospel. Because
that is the way that the Church communicates the truth. Paul
could say, I determined not to know anything among you save
Jesus Christ and Him crucified. Peter, in his epistle says, the
word of the Lord endureth forever, and this is the word which by
the gospel is preached unto you. And John, he speaks of having
the everlasting gospel to preach unto them that dwell on the earth
and to every nation and kindred and tongue and people. So these
apostles, whether it's Peter, whether it's John, whether it's
later Paul, these apostles understood that the gospel is essential
to our personal conversion, to our experiential union with Christ,
and our fellowship with one another, and essential for our ministry
in the world. The gospel is the heart of our
dealings with each other, with the Lord, and with the world. How can anyone be among them
which shall believe if we don't know what to believe? How can
anyone be among them which shall believe if the true gospel is
hid from us? How can we believe in him of
whom we have not heard? How can we believe the truth
if we are strangers to the truth? Our Lord Jesus Christ has committed
this glorious gospel to his church and the people of his body. to be treasured and to be proclaimed. It is God's means in the hands
of the church. So let us, you and me, brother
and sister, let us dedicate ourselves to the propagation of this glorious
gospel. The great distinction between
men and women in this world is how we regard the gospel of God
and how we respond to the death of the Lord Jesus Christ. That's
the great difference, the great distinction. How we react when
we hear the gospel preached. And many, many people have no
interest in the gospel. no thought concerning the death
of Jesus Christ, and they shall enter God's presence with no
concern for their eternal soul. It is a fearful thing to fall
into the hands of the living God. And I preach week by week,
hoping that somewhere the Lord will burden a poor sinner concerning
their eternal state and cause them to seek the Saviour. But here too the Lord has a word
of encouragement for His Church. He tells us that these gospel
truths, this spiritual union, is what distinguishes the Church
from the world. Those who believe from those
who do not believe. Those who are Christ's sheep
and those who refuse to be led by the Good Shepherd. A day is
fast approaching when the world will acknowledge what it has
hitherto denied, that Christ was sent to earth by God as the
one and only way of life and truth. The time is coming when
every knee shall bow and every tongue confess that Jesus Christ
is Lord. So then every one of us shall
give account of himself to God. Let me finish with this point
and then we're done today. Christ's prayer for our union
is in the love of God. We are united in and through
and by the love of God towards us. Now we've seen previously
how all three persons of the Godhead in these chapters 14,
15, 16, and 17, the Lord speaks often about this union. And we've
seen how all three persons of the Godhead indwell the heart
and soul of a believer. The Father lives within us, the
Son lives within us, and the Holy Spirit indwells us. And
here the Lord is restating that He is in His people. And this
is the nature of our relationship with Him. We are new creations. We are born again. Christ lives
in us. We are born again with the resurrection
life of Christ. And this new life, this transformation,
this conversion characterizes those that believe on him, every
child of God. And the Lord Jesus looks forward
to the time when his gathered church is complete, when the
body is perfected and every redeemed soul is brought to a knowledge
of the truth and faith in their saviour. I would contend that that body
is not yet perfected because... We're still preaching the gospel.
This gospel, this glory that Christ has committed into the
care of the church is still being preached, is still being declared,
presumably to the end, that there are still some to be gathered
before the Lord Jesus Christ comes back and wraps everything
up. There are still some to be gathered.
And the Lord is looking forward to that completed body. the body being perfected, and
every redeemed soul brought to a knowledge of truth and faith
in the Saviour. The Church's completion and perfection
will be a testimony to the whole world of the success of the Lord
Jesus. Now, let's not get our subjects
mixed up here. The Church is already perfect
in righteousness. In Christ Jesus, we are holy,
we are blameless, we are free from all condemnation. But when
Christ's body is finally revealed in all of its numerical entirety, It's complete, it's perfect. The world of men will be obliged
to own that Jesus is the Christ, that his gospel is true and that
his church is all glorious in him. The world will learn of
the Father's love to us. God's love towards us Isn't that amazing? Isn't that a tremendous thought?
That's what the Saviour says here. God's love towards us is from
eternity, just as he has loved Christ, his Son, from eternity.
It's an enduring love, an everlasting love. It is a love of pleasure
and delight because the Lord God, the Father, loved his Son
with pleasure and delight and he loves us in the same way.
It's not a general love to all men, but like God's love to his
Son, it is special, it is distinctive, it is unchangeable, it is indissoluble. The love the Father has for the
Son is shared with those who are in the Son. And Christ declares,
thou hast loved them as thou hast loved me. What an astonishing
fact that is. Today's emphasis has, I trust,
been on our personal privileges and blessedness as believers
in Christ. So I'm going to end where we
began. God's personal love towards us,
our personal union with God in Christ, our personal acceptance,
our righteous standing, and Christ's enduring intercession and representation
for us in his Father's presence. is ours under the accomplished
terms of the covenant of grace. Brothers and sisters, you who
believe in Christ, we who believe in Christ, through the preaching
of the apostles' ministry, the glory which Christ delivered
to us, we who believe in Christ are the happiest the safest,
the richest, the wisest, the most blessed people in this world,
because we are united to Christ, because we are loved by the Father,
because we are possessed of the Holy Spirit. May the Lord give
us faith to believe these things and grace to live upon them all
the days of our life. Amen.