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| > Sermon Archive > Sermons by Author > Dr. Wes Bredenhof > As we're in the world, Christ's High Priestly Prayer encourages us | Previous Next Print |
| Order Of Worship (Liturgy) Psalm 100 Psalm 51:1,2,4 (after the Law of God) Psalm 41:1,3 Hymn 52 Hymn 42 Scripture reading and text: John 17 |
Beloved congregation of Christ,
There’s a difference between personal and corporate prayers. Corporate prayers are those we pray together, like in church. Corporate prayers are done publicly. Personal prayers are the ones we pray by ourselves. Normally they’re private. Nobody else hears them. But here in our passage from John this morning we have a personal prayer of our Lord Jesus. And yet it’s public, for all the world to hear. Jesus could have prayed this personal prayer privately, but he allowed John to listen in and then record it in writing. We should ask why.
The answer has to do with encouragement. It’s called the High Priestly Prayer. It’s called that because here Jesus intercedes as a High Priest for his people right before he offers the great sacrifice of himself for their sins. And we’re allowed to listen in to this prayer because Christ wants to encourage us as we live in this world. He says in verse 11 that believers are “in the world.” Verse 16 clarifies that we are not “of the world.” So believers are not characterized by the qualities of this sinful world of unbelief. But we do live in the midst of it. We live in a broken world, a world that’s hostile to God, a world that hates Christ and so also hates his followers. To go on living in this world, we need our Lord’s encouragement.
So I preach to you God’s Word this morning and I’ve summarized the sermon with this theme: As we’re in the world, Christ’s High Priestly Prayer encourages us.
We’ll see how he encourages us with prayer for:
- Himself
- His present disciples
- His future disciples
The High Priestly Prayer is unique because of the one who prays it and the pivotal moment at which he prays it. It’s the Son of God who is about to offer up his life as a sacrifice for sinners. That’s why he says in verse 1 that “the hour has come.” His final suffering is imminent – as we get into chapter 18 we read right away about Judas handing him over to the Jewish religious leaders.
As all this is about to unfold, he first of all prays regarding himself. He rehearses what he’s done in his ministry so far. The Father doesn’t need him to do that – he knows everything. But it encourages us to think back about what Christ has done up to this point. In verse 4 he speaks of having glorified God by accomplishing the work he was given to do. Jesus had a God-given teaching, preaching, and healing ministry. He proclaimed the gospel, but his life also made up an important part of the gospel. His obedience was part of the work he was given to do. As we survey the life of Christ up to this point, we find perfect love for God and neighbour exemplified in every way. Christ perfectly fulfilled the law of love. That’s an encouragement because we don’t have that perfect obedience God requires of us. We get it by looking to Christ, trusting in him, and receiving his obedience in our place. That’s a beautiful part of the gospel.
And now, through the cross, he’s about to give eternal life to all who have been given to him by the Father. We have to unpack that a little. Here too there are some encouraging gospel truths for us. Before the universe existed, the Triune God lived in perfect communal love. The Son and the Father and the Holy Spirit shared divine glory. The Father chose a certain number of human beings to eternal life. These are known as the elect. He gave the elect to the Son so that he would suffer and die for them. The Son of God is now about to go to the cross and when he does he will carry the names of the elect on his heart. Loved ones, I want you to understand this because it’s so encouraging. If you have rested from your efforts at salvation and have trusted in Jesus to do everything for you, then you can be sure that when he was on that cross, your name was on his heart. He was intentionally paying for your sins. He did that out of love for you. He loved you that much and he still does.
And he also loves the glory of the Father. So he prays here for the Father to glorify his Son. This is looking ahead to after the cross. After the humiliation of the cross, Christ will be vindicated by his resurrection on the third day. God will announce that his sacrifice in the place of the elect was accepted. Then later he’ll ascend into heaven and he will again be in the glorious presence of God, shining with all the divine glory that is his. So he prays that all of this will come to pass because more than anything he loves to see the Father praised. How does that encourage us? Because that’s what the First Commandment is about. The First Commandment not only has the negative side of not having false gods or idols. It also requires us to worship, praise, and glorify God in all our words and works. We always fall short of that, but Jesus never did and his prayer here reminds us that it was always a top priority for him. His obedience here too is transferred over to us as a gift of the gospel. Because he has done all this in our place, we have eternal life, having a relationship of fellowship with the only true God and his Son, our Saviour.
He also encourages us with prayer for those who are presently his disciples. Before we get into the things he prays for, let’s remember again who it is that’s praying. It’s the Son of God. I can’t help but think of what we confess in article 26 of the Belgic Confession. That article is about Christ’s intercession as our High Priest. The first paragraph concludes with this rhetorical question: “…who will be heard more readily than God’s own well-beloved Son?” Of course, no one. So we can be confident that this prayer here in John 17 has reached the Father and he has acted on it and he continues to act on it.
When it comes to his present disciples, there are three main things the great High Priest Jesus prays for here. The first is protection. Protection is needed because there are threats. There’s the threat of the world in which disciples live. The world wants disciples of Jesus to conform and if they won’t conform they’ll be facing enormous hostility. Verse 15 mentions another serious threat: the evil one. Satan’s name literally means “Enemy.” He rages with hatred against Christ and his followers. If he could, he would destroy the Son of God and everyone who bears his name. As Peter says in his first letter, Satan prowls around like a roaring lion looking for someone to devour. A roaring lion. He’s not to be taken lightly.
What an encouragement it is, then, to hear Christ praying as he does for those who have been given to him. He prays in verse 11, “Holy Father, keep them in your name…” When he says “in your name” there he means “keep them in your power.” According to verse 12, that’s what Jesus did in his earthly ministry. He guarded his disciples. Only one was lost and that was Judas Iscariot. Jesus calls him “the son of destruction.” The Scriptures prophesied in passages like Psalm 41:9 that a close associate of the Messiah would betray him. Judas went as it was foretold, as Christ himself knew it would be. But for the other 11, those who were chosen to salvation, he guarded them carefully. Now he prays for the Father to do the same.
And as I mentioned a moment ago, this is a prayer where we can be confident of the answer. With those disciples who were with Jesus at that time, the eleven were kept, not one of them fell away, even under the pressure of persecution. And for those disciples who are following Jesus right now at this moment, if they’re true Christians, they won’t fall away either. If you’re believing in Jesus Christ as your Saviour, you can be confident that God the Father will guard you and protect you, both from the world and from the evil one. Charles Spurgeon said it well, “If believers are lost, God loses more than they do, for he loses his honour, he loses his character for truthfulness, and the glory of his Name is tarnished.” And loved ones, that will never, ever happen.
The second main thing Christ prays for with regard to his present disciples is sanctification. He says in verse 17, “Sanctify them in the truth, your word is truth.” Verse 18 is similar. To be sanctified is to be made holy, to be set apart for service to God. Sanctification is the process where that happens.
It’s a process that takes place through an instrument or tool. That tool is the truth, the truth of God’s Word. Notice how Jesus says in verse 17, “your word is truth.” In today’s world, people talk about truth as if it’s a subjective thing. Everyone has their own personal truth. That truth is more geared to your feelings than to objective reality. In a few hours from when Jesus uttered this prayer, he’ll be in front of Pontius Pilate. Jesus will say that he came into this world to bear witness to the truth. But Pilate cynically replies, “What is truth?” Who can know what is really true? But God says there is public, objective truth that exists outside of us. He has revealed it in his Word. The Bible is truth. And it’s through the Bible that God transforms disciples of Jesus. He did it in the past and he continues to do it in the present.
Every true Christian is drawn to the Word of God, whether it’s being preached in church on Sunday or being read at home during the week. And through the Word, God is sanctifying us in response to Christ’s prayer here. That’s an encouragement because sometimes we might wonder whether we’ll ever change. There’s that sin that you continue to battle with and you wonder whether there’ll ever be any progress. Yes, there will because Christ is interceding for you and the High Priestly Prayer reflects how he continues to pray for you. He is on the side of your sanctification. He’s asking the Father to keep on sanctifying you in the truth. And if you’re a genuine believer, that’s a prayer that will be answered. It may not happen in a flash. It may be the case that you can only appreciate your progress as you look back over the course of many years, but God’s Word promises you that Christ is praying for you and he won’t be ignored by the Father. You will experience ongoing sanctification in the truth because of his intercession as your great High Priest.
The third main thing Christ prays for with regard to his present disciples is unity. He wants believers to be one, just as the Father and the Son are one. Let’s think about the unity between the Father and the Son for a moment. How close is it? While the Father and the Son are distinct persons in the Trinity, they’re still in the most intimate fellowship with each other. The love they have for each other is as deep as love goes. Now that’s the kind of unity that Christ is praying for here for his present disciples. He wants them to be bound to each other intimately in love.
Again, a prayer made and a prayer answered. As we go further in the New Testament, we do witness the unity of the disciples of Jesus. Sure, there were difficulties. Sometimes there were conflicts – think of what Paul writes in Galatians 2 about confronting Peter with his hypocrisy. But they worked through that and God preserved the unity of the apostolic church.
Today too, the High Priestly Prayer continues to be answered. Despite challenges at times, Christ continues to grant unity to his followers. We experience that most fully in our own church family, but it extends beyond that too. What a blessing it is to know that we’re not alone, that we have brothers and sisters in Christ who share our burdens as well as our joys. At the same time, unity is also a calling. Because Christ has it as one of his priorities, we’re also to have it as one of ours. We’re to long for and work for the closest possible unity amongst ourselves in our own church, in our own church federation, and also with other faithful believers in other churches. Christ wants us to be as close as we can to one another, just like he’s close to the Father.
As our final point, we want to see how Christ also encourages us with prayer for his future disciples. I always find it quite amazing that Christ was thinking of me and you already back then. In verse 20, he says that he’s praying also for those who will believe in him through the word preached. He’s looking ahead into time and he knows how the church is going to grow way beyond those eleven disciples with him right then, way beyond the larger group of disciples following him right then. There are three things he prays for future disciples.
The first is again unity. It’s obviously something weighing heavy on the heart of our Saviour. He wants that for his present disciples, but also for his disciples to come. But here he adds another additional reason for this prayer. He wants all present and future disciples to be united, “so that the world may believe that you have sent me.” That’s in verse 21 and he says something similar in verse 23. Unity among believers serves the cause of the gospel. Unity serves the spread of the gospel because it adds credibility to it. When the world sees Christians always at odds with one another, the world mocks the faith we hold dear. But when we’re united, we give a good witness to how the gospel transforms us into people of peace and harmony. So Christ prays that future disciples will be united. They will be, but it’s also something they have to work towards in greater measures.
The second thing Christ prays for is that his future disciples may be with him where he is. He’s speaking from the perspective of where he is about to be. He’s about to be in the glorious presence of the Father and he’ll be glorified. And he prays that his future disciples will be there too, to see his glory. What does that mean exactly?
If someone is glorious, they’re beautiful, stunning, lovely. What is it about the exalted Christ in heaven that makes him glorious and beautiful to behold? When we see him in heaven, we’ll see the God-man, completely set apart from sin and majestic in splendour. When we see him in heaven, we’ll see him seated at the right hand of the Father, high and lifted up. Yet when we see him in heaven, we’ll also see his tenderness, gentleness, and compassion for his disciples. When we see him in heaven, we’ll see both his justice and his love, in perfect harmony. We’ll see his wisdom, a wisdom that far surpasses that of Solomon or any other human being. And we’ll see the one who delights to have fellowship with us. When we arrive, he’ll see us and greet us as the friends we are. Loved ones, he wants his disciples to be with him. He wants you to be with him. He’s prayed for it, and if you’re a Christian, you can be sure he will get what he wants. He will have you with him and it’ll be for his delight and your eternal joy.
The last thing Christ prays for with regard to his future disciples is love. That’s in the last verse of the chapter. Jesus says he made known God’s name to his present disciples. What that means is that Jesus is the self-revelation of God. If you want to know what God is like, look at Christ, because Christ has shown us God in himself. The Son is the perfect reflection of the Father. And Christ will continue to be that self-revelation of God moving forward with all his disciples including us.
And it’s for the purpose of love. Christ says, “…that the love with which you have loved me may be in them and I in them.” First John 4:8 says that God is love. When it says that, we should think first of all about the eternal love that has existed between the persons of the Trinity, the love between the Father, the Son, and the Holy Spirit. Christ prays that that love would be in all his disciples, all who’ve received the self-revelation of God in him. That eternal love between the Father and the Son, how can we adequately describe it? It’s so powerful, so rich, and so deep. And yet Christ prays that our love would be like that too. And through the work of the Holy Spirit, believers are moving in that direction right now. Love is growing in us as we live in this world. Then someday, some wonderful day, we will be glorified. When we die or when Christ returns, we’ll be perfect. At that moment, Christ’s prayer will be completely answered for us. The love of the Trinity will be our love for the Trinity and for one another. We’ll have such a close communion with Christ that his love will then be ours. In this world, sometimes we struggle to love, sometimes even to love just a little bit. But here Christ encourages us with his prayer – the day is coming when we’ll not only know perfect love, we’ll have perfect love in him.
Imagine a man praying by himself in a locked room. He thinks no one is home so he prays out loud – sometimes a good practice for our prayers. He’s concentrating so much that he doesn’t hear his wife come home. She can hear him talking to someone. So she comes up to the door and listens in and she hears him praying for her. You can imagine that such a wife would be touched with that, encouraged by that. Her husband loves her and prays for her. Well, that’s what we’ve sort of got here in the High Priestly Prayer too. The one who loves us is praying for us. And we don’t have to feel bad about listening in, because he wants us to listen. He wants us to be encouraged as we go on with our pilgrimage in this world and all its challenges. AMEN.
PRAYER
Our great High Priest Jesus,
We pray to you because you prayed for us and still do. We’re so encouraged by your continual intercession for us as our High Priest. We thank you for offering yourself in our place, for obeying all the commandments as our substitute. We praise you for your love and compassion. Thank you for pleading for our preservation and sanctification. Thank you for interceding for our unity, for our love. We worship you for the assurance we have that some day we’ll see you in all your glory and beauty. Lord, we look forward to that. As we wait for that day, we pray for your Holy Spirit to continue to work holiness in our lives, that he would fill us with love for you and for one another. We pray for your Holy Spirit to give us greater degrees of unity with one another in our church family, but also with other faithful believers in other churches. Please continue your holy work in our lives for your glory and for the spread of the gospel in this dark world.
* As a matter of courtesy please advise Dr. Wes Bredenhof, if you plan to use this sermon in a worship service. Thank-you.
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