We continue our, this is going to be a three-part study of Jesus' high priestly prayer, and this is week two. We've got one more next week. And I was telling the deacons the other night, the timing's going to work out really well as we head up into Easter, which is at the end of next month, the last Sunday of March. And John, we're going to be at the right place at the right time to study the crucifixion and all that around the weeks preceding Easter. So that'll be That'll be good when we get there. But for now, we're in John 17, verse six is where we're gonna begin today. So if you have a Bible, please turn there, or on your phone, or whatever, however you wanna look up the scriptures this morning. And by the way, I haven't said it for a while, if you ever need a Bible, a paper Bible, we got a bunch on the info table back in the foyer there. You help yourself, you can have one of those. I think if there's a sin, You know, I'm just going to own it this morning. Probably one of the most prevalent sins in my life, and I'm going to guess one of the most prevalent sins in churches today is the sin of prayerlessness. I don't know if you've ever thought about prayerlessness as a sin. But scripture tells us to pray continually. Paul wrote in 1 Thessalonians 5.18, pray continually. Part and parcel of the Christian life and being children of God and Christians is prayer. Somebody has said, a Christian can no more not pray than a person not breathe air. It's just who we are, we pray. And I wonder what blessings of God we miss out on because we don't pray like we should. We do commit the sin of prayerlessness. And as Christians, we sometimes concentrate on the sins of commission, sins that we commit, that we don't want to do, but sometimes we do, like we covet, and we lie, and we, you know, all the things the Bible says, don't do this. And when we do those things, we sin, we rebel against God, we commit, sins of commission, those are called. But there's also another category of sins called the sins of omission, where there's things the Bible tells us, but you need to be doing these things, and when we don't do what the Bible says, that's a sin as well, we omit, sins of omission. Things like coming to church and studying the word and witnessing and all the one another's, those are commands. And praying. Bible tells us to pray, pray continually. And so there's different ways that we can sin. So sometimes I wonder, what would our lives look like? What would our church look like if we were really obedient to praying continually? And really, when we refuse that or we neglect that, we're, in a sense, sinning. We're rebelling against God. And so we need to be people of prayer. We need to be praying with one another. The early church, again, we're talking about this in Sunday school, Acts 2, right out of the chute, one of the things they did together was they got together to pray. They prayed together. They observed what in the Greek is called the times of prayer, the prayer times. So it wasn't just they went to their individual prayer closet, if you will, but they gathered to pray as a church. And so it's a pattern of churches ever since Acts 2 in Jerusalem. So we need to be people like that where we pray alone, we pray with our families, we pray together as a church, we pray with each other, and we need to be praying for each other. Have you ever been on the receiving end of somebody saying, you know what, I just want you to know I'm praying for you? And just how encouraging that is. What a blessing that is when people say that they're praying for us. We all need that. But, as it relates to prayer, I think we can just kind of all own that we need to do better in that department. Let's just all silently say amen if you want. But we all need to be doing better in the department of prayer. I know I do. But as it relates to prayer, there's a word of comfort. for us in this next section of Jesus' High Priestly Prayer that we're gonna look at this morning, starting with verse six. And it's this, even when we forget to pray, even when we are negligent or inconsistent in our prayer lives, there's someone who never forgets, is never inconsistent, and is always praying for us, and that's Jesus Christ in heaven. And I want that just to sit for a second on your consciousness, on your heart, in your soul. negligent, even when we're lazy, even when we're disobedient, and maybe intentionally sometimes in our sin, and we don't pray like we should, Jesus never is like that. He's never inconsistent. He's never negligent. He never forgets. Jesus Christ is praying for us right now in heaven. Let me give you a couple of verses to encourage you with that this morning. Hebrews 7, 24 and 25. Because Jesus lives forever, he has a permanent, listen for the finality in these verses in Hebrews 7. He has a permanent priesthood, therefore he is able to save completely those who come to God through him because he always lives to intercede for them. He's always interceding for us in heaven. In Hebrews, there's a lot of Hebrew Jewish language here, and the writer of Hebrews talks about the priesthood. Well, Jesus is the great high priest. We don't have priests like Israel had. They had to go to God through the priest. Well, Jesus is that now. We go to God, the Father Jesus, He's our high priest. And he always lives, he's always praying for us, he's always interceding for us with God the Father in heaven as our high priest. Beautiful picture. Romans 8, 33 and 34. Who will bring any charge against those whom God has chosen? That's a rhetorical question. Nobody is the answer. It is God who justifies, who then is the one who condemns, not one. Christ Jesus, who died, more than that, who was raised to life, is at the right hand of God and is also interceding for us. The crucifixion was not the end of the story, and really the resurrection, even though that was the exclamation point in the redemption story, it's not the end of the story. Now Christ always intercedes for us. He's in heaven praying for us, interceding for us. Beautiful truth. There's a Scottish minister back in the 19th century, his name is Robert Murray McShane, and he said this, if I could hear Christ praying for me in the next room, I would not fear a million enemies. Yet the distance makes no difference. He is praying for me. Right now, this morning, we have the comfort, we have the blessing to know that Jesus Christ is praying for us. That's amazing, that's mind-blowing. At the right hand of the Father, Jesus in his omniscience is praying for you this morning right now. And he's praying for me. So we know that Jesus is praying for us. We've established that. But what is he praying? What might he be praying for us this morning? And so I think this next section of Jesus' High Priestly Prayer gives us a little glimpse into the prayer life of Jesus. And I can't say definitively that this is the prayer list. You know, we have a prayer list on Wednesday night. I can't say all these things are on Jesus' prayer list. But I do know he prayed once for these things, for his disciples, that includes us. So I think it's not a stretch to guess that maybe he's still praying these things for us. I think these things are still on Jesus' prayer list as he's praying for us. And so number one in your notes there, this isn't necessarily what he's praying, but it's the premise of his prayer that we need to look at first. So in your notes, if you want to fill in some blanks on the note page, the premise of his prayer is a relationship built on truth and faith. Before we get to what He's praying for us, I guess this is the why, the why He's praying for us, the relationship that we have built on truth and faith. So if you look at verses 6 through 8 in your Bibles, it says, I have revealed Jesus. Okay, now remember, this is Jesus praying. And if you missed last week, I'll catch you up real quick. It's Thursday night before Calvary. The Last Supper had just taken place. Jesus and the disciples, they leave the upper room. They start heading across the Kidron Valley. On the other side of the Kidron Valley is the Garden of Gethsemane. And Jesus is walking and talking and he's teaching. It's the last time he's teaching his disciples. And so I imagine, the scriptures don't say, but I imagine they get to where they're going. Maybe on the edge of the garden and Jesus the last thing he says is in this world You're gonna have a lot of trouble if you look at the end of chapter 16 in this world You're gonna have a lot of trouble, but don't be afraid because I've overcome the world And then it looks like in the text, I imagine a pause there. And then Jesus turns his eyes to heaven and he prays this prayer. It's called the High Priestly Prayer. We looked at the first part of it. Jesus praying for himself to be glorified last week. And in this section today, he's praying for his disciples. And I think that includes us. So that's the scene here. So Jesus is praying, as good Jewish man would do, arms raised. They prayed with open palms and arms raised to heaven. Jesus prays, I've revealed you to those whom you gave me out of the world. They were yours, and you gave them to me, and they have obeyed your word. Now they know everything that you've given me comes from you. Now they know that everything you have given me comes from you. For I gave them the words that you gave me, and they accepted them. They knew with certainty that I came from you, and they believed that you sent me." The relationship that we have with the Father and the relationship that we have with Jesus is based on the same things, hearing the truth and believing the truth. Hearing the truth of Scripture, responding in faith, and believing the truth of Scripture. Look at verse 8 again. For I gave them the words that you gave me, and they accepted them. They believed them. They had faith. They knew with certainty that I came from you, and they believed that you sent me. And so the premise here of the prayer is relationship. Those who Jesus prays for are those who belong to him, given to him by the Father, who heard the message of the good news of the gospel and had faith, and they're believed by God's grace. This is exactly what Paul taught in Romans 10, 17. Faith comes from hearing the message, hearing the words, hearing the message, and the message is heard through the word about Christ, sorry. I'll read that again. Faith comes from hearing the message and the message is heard through the word about Christ. And so it bears, this is kind of a little rabbit trail, but I think it bears repeating because I think this is an important thing for us to remember and remind ourselves of. To emphasize that people don't respond in faith Somebody doesn't get saved, somebody doesn't respond to the gospel because they finally figured it out and it finally made sense to them. And I think as we witness and we pray for people and we get so frustrated because for us it seems so simple, people don't believe because we finally were able to explain it well enough that they could understand. People come to faith in Christ because God gifts them the faith to believe. Otherwise, it would be a work, wouldn't it? If it were up to me, I could have a little bit to brag about, like, eh, you know what, I kinda, I wasn't that sharp in high school or college, but I finally figured it out. Then I would have a little bit to be proud about. Even the faith to become a Christian, the faith to believe is a gift from God, that God graciously gives us. Let me show you a little verse. Again, we're on a little rabbit trail here, but stay with me, we'll get back. There's a cool little verse, Acts 16, 14. We'll put it on the screen here. The setting here, it's the second missionary journey. Paul and his entourage, they're going through Europe, which is now Europe, and they're kind of traveling around that part of the world. And they get to Philippi. There's no church in Philippi yet. And so, in fact, there weren't even very many Jews in Philippi, they think. So they get to, in Acts 16, they get to Philippi, and 1st 14 says, one of those listening was a woman from the city of Thyatira named Lydia, a dealer in purple cloth. She was a worshiper of God. The Lord opened her heart to respond to Paul's message. And so, Paul on his missionary journey, they get to Philippi, and it was the Sabbath. And so there's no synagogue, because Paul would have went to the synagogue to teach, but there was no synagogue, which meant it took 10 Jewish men to establish a synagogue. If you had 10 Jewish men, you could start a church, you could start a synagogue, but there wasn't one. So they go outside, they want to find a place to pray, it's a Sabbath, just to get together and worship and pray, and there's these women, and one of them's Lydia. This is just kind of a cool little story, I think. And Lydia evidently was well off, because dealing in purple cloth was a Gucci? I don't know. That was a high-end thing in those days. Is that a good thing? I don't even know. Target, I don't know, Walmart, I don't know. But it was a high-end thing. So anyway, that was Lydia. So evidently well off. And after the story, she convinces Paul and all of his entourage to come and stay at her house. And so they're outside by the river praying, too. It's the Sabbath. So evidently, Lydia, they think, was Jewish. But she wasn't a Christian. She was a worshiper of God. She knew probably the law. She knew the Old Testament. But she didn't know the Messiah. And Paul shares the gospel with Lydia that day. Lydia, by the way, a little, if you ever read Trivia Night and they ask you this, the first convert on the continent of Europe was Lydia, as far as we know. The first person saved was Lydia. But the point I want to bring out for all this and bring it back around is the Lord opened her heart. Lydia, businesswoman, probably well off, you know, fill in blanks that Scripture doesn't tell us. She wasn't smart enough to figure it out. The Lord opened her heart so that she could have the faith to receive Christ, to believe in Christ. Who responds? Our job is just to sow the seeds, right? So if you have somebody in your life right now that you're just burdened for and you've prayed for and you've shared, don't give up. Keep praying for them. Keep praying for them. Keep praying for them. Pray continually for them. Who responds is above our pay grade. We don't have any part in that. All we do is we're planters of seeds of the gospel. But the point, okay, now I'm gonna bring it back around. The point that we wanna take away from this opening section here is that Jesus is praying for those of us who have heard the words of the gospel and respond and believe them. That's who's being prayed for here. The premise of his prayer is relationship built on truth and faith in that truth that's a gift from God. So what does he pray? Number two in your notes there. He prayed for their protection. He prayed for their protection. So if you look at verse nine, we're gonna kind of walk our way through nine through 16 and just kind of unpack these verses a couple at a time here. As we look at the big idea here that Jesus prays for protection for us, for his disciples then and his disciples now. Verse nine says, I pray for them. I'm not praying for the world. but for those you have given me, for they are yours." Jesus was focused in his prayer on his disciples, those who had believed in him. In fact, MacArthur points out in his commentary, the only recorded instance in the New Testament of Christ praying for unsaved people, you know where he was? He was on the cross. Father, forgive them. They don't know what they're doing. That's the only time there's a prayer in scripture that Jesus prays for unsaved people. And so Jesus, in this prayer, he's praying for his disciples. I'm praying for them, those who've responded, who've heard the truth and responded. But on the cross, it is kind of cool. Jesus says, forgive them. They don't know what they're doing. That's a great little template for us to pray for unsaved people. Father, forgive them, Father, save them. Father, by your grace, give them the faith to believe and save them. In verse 10, he continues praying. He says, all I have is yours, and all you have is mine, and glory has come to me through them. Now, I will remain in the world no longer, but they're still in the world. I'm coming to you. Holy Father, that's the only place Jesus uses that phrase for God. Holy Father, protect them by the power of your name, the name that you gave me so that they may be one as we are one. While I was with them, I protected them and I kept them safe by the name that you gave me. Jesus allows his disciples to hear what will be keeping them, what will be protecting them as he leaves. And it's the power of the name of God, the Holy Father. Like I just mentioned earlier, Jesus had just told them, you know, in this world, you're going to have some trouble. But the Father, the name of God the Father will be what holds you absolutely secure and safe in this world. He gives that assurance to his disciples. And we talked about last couple weeks about just how terrified they must have been as Jesus is walking and talking and teaching them. He goes, I've told you this before, but just remember, I'm going to be leaving. And I'm going to send the Holy Spirit and kind of gives them a picture of what's coming. But for them, the thought of Jesus leaving them had to be just be terrifying. But he says that the thing that's going to be protecting you is the name of the Holy God Almighty, Holy Father. And then there's a little parenthetical in my notes here, I put parentheses around the last part of verse 12. that's kind of how I imagined it went here, but Jesus says, none has been lost except the one doomed to destruction so the scripture would be fulfilled. One of those scriptures I put on the screen for you is Psalm 41 9, even my close friend, someone I trusted, one who shared my bread has turned against me. And so Jesus says in his prayer, part of his prayer here is, Father, none have been lost except for that one that was already doomed to destruction so that scripture would be fulfilled. Even though Judas was one of the 12 disciples, Judas was not a saved man. John 13, 11 says he was never washed of his sins. He was never truly born again. One commentary said he might have worn the uniform, but he was never on the team. And so Jesus didn't lose Judas because he failed to keep him in some way. In fact, Jesus knew all along that Judas was an imposter, a faux disciple. And he allowed Judas's rejection of him to be used for redemption's plan. So he didn't lose Judas because he never had Judas. And then in verse 13, Jesus continues praying. He says, I'm coming to you now, talking to the Father, but I say these things while I'm still in the world, so that they may have full measure of my joy within them. I've given them your word, and the world has hated them, for they're not of the world any more than I am of the world. My prayer is not, and verse 15 there, you have in your Bible, verse 15 is kind of the money verse for this section here. My prayer is not that you take them out of the world, but that you protect them from the evil one. They're not of the world, even as I am not of it. And so what's important here is what Jesus doesn't pray. Jesus doesn't ask the Father to take the disciples out of the world or take us out of the world as soon as we're born again. And you think, man, that would have been awesome if God would have done that. But that's not God's plan. He doesn't pray. He knows in this world you're going to have trouble. He knows there's hard stuff coming. He knows this is a sin-broken, saturated world, and there's going to be trouble, and there's going to be hardship, and there's going to be persecution. And Jesus doesn't pray that they would be taken out of the world. And also he doesn't intend for those who follow him to retreat back to their own little spiritual bomb shelters and seclude themselves away from the world. That had been, humanly speaking, kind of nice too. Like, okay, let's just go to the desert. We'll become like the Essenes and we'll just kind of like hunker down and we'll just wait for Jesus to come back and we'll kind of be safe. And Jesus says, no, that's not the thing either. Jesus' intent is, even though we're not of the world, that we're still in the world. Philippians 2.15, Paul, he kind of paints a real picturesque image here of what this looks like. He says that you may become blameless and pure, children of God without fault in a warped and crooked generation. Then you will shine among them. like stars in the sky. Paul's saying here, we're to be holy, we're to live holy lives in a really unholy world so that we can shine for Christ among them. But in a warped and crooked world is where we live, so Jesus prays for protection from the evil one. There's nothing that Satan would like more than to cause us, cause Christians to lose our nerve, lose our faith, lose our trust in God. And I think that's what he's praying for here, protection from the evil one. He's praying for us to stay strong in our faith, to keep trusting God, to keep walking with God, holding his hand, walking in faith. I think of Job. I was preparing this, kind of thinking through it. I thought about Job. And the only thing that Job could have, that Satan could have touched with Job was things outside of him, including his skin. He couldn't touch Job's soul. And I think, and you read through the book of Job, and even his wife is like, you know what, just curse God and die. It's easy as there's adversity and there's trials, there's hard stuff in life, for us to lose our nerve, lose our will to trust God. And instead of trusting God, you know, we become callous and we become afraid and we stop trusting. And we can rest assured that any and all trial, opposition, whatever it is, only comes our way, is only allowed to come our way filtered through the loving, gracious hands of our Father, because Jesus is praying for us. And I think that God does allow difficulties to shape us and to make us pray more. How many pray more in times of difficulty? You can raise your hand, we all do. And so everything's intentional for us that God allows to come our way. But the protection from the evil one, I think, is protection from discouragement, protection from losing faith. Not saving faith, we can't lose that, but just daily faith of trusting God with today and tomorrow. So Jesus is praying for our protection. Number three, he also prayed for their unity. Look at verse 11, we just read this earlier, but just verse 11 says, I will remain in the world no longer, but they're still in the world. I'm 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. And we'll talk a lot more about unity next week because the last six verses of this prayer, that's what Jesus prays for. So we'll spend most of our time next week on this. But I think it's important to note that that praying for unity is in the context here of praying for protection. And I think what Jesus is praying for here is protection from disunity. Because Satan can do that too, he can mess things up in a church and cause disunity among the followers of Christ. And I think Satan loves it when Christians and churches are disunified. not getting along, holding grudges, self-centered, bitter, unforgiving, all those things that cause disunity and bring shame on the body of Christ. So he prays for protection in this critical area for any local church for unity. Father, protect them from being disunified, from having disunity among them. And we'll talk more about unity next week. And then number four. He prayed for their sanctification. Verses 17 through 19, Jesus prays, 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 that they too may be truly sanctified. So sanctification, sanctify, what does that word mean? Sanctification means to be set apart for a certain purpose or a certain use, all right? So say you go home after church today and you're talking like, well, what's for dinner tonight? Let's have hamburgers. Well, the ground beef's all froze. We'll set it on the counter and let it thaw out. We'll make hamburgers tonight. You've just sanctified that ground beef. You've set it apart for a purpose. That's what the word means. That's how it was used in Greek culture. It was something that was set aside for a specific purpose or use. And so we're in this warped and crooked world. We've been sanctified. Jesus prays that we're sanctified, that we're set apart for a purpose and a use. And there are two dangers, there are two temptations, or a metaphor that I like to use, there are two ditches that we need to be aware of as we go through this warped and crooked world. Assimilation and isolation. Two ditches that we need to be aware of as we travel the road of this world. Assimilation, becoming like the world. Isolation, removing ourselves from the world. Isolating from the world. too dangerous. And if Jesus were to answer the question, that's not what I saved you for. Rather, I've saved you for a mission. I'm sending you. I've saved you to be sent. As you sent me into the world, I'm sending them into the world. I've sent them into the world. And so we need to be aware of those two ditches of assimilation becoming so like the world that we're no witness at all. It's kind of where we live. It's a warped and crooked world. I'm better than that. So we kind of grade ourselves by what's worse. And we can fall in the ditch of assimilation, becoming too much like the world, or isolation. You know, Out of the Salt Shaker was a book written probably back in the 70s by Rebecca Pippert. And it's the whole idea of we're not saved to stay in the salt shaker. We're saved to be out, to be flavoring the world. And we just tend to want to stay where it's safe with all the other salt in the salt shaker and hunker down. And so both of those are ditches, and both of those are not what Jesus saved us for. He saved us for mission. Verse 18, again, as you sent me, I'm sending them into the world. And the thing that keeps us from assimilation and the thing that keeps us from isolation is the sanctifying work of the Word of God. The scriptures guard us from both of those ditches, to keep us going. down the middle of the road on the mission that Christ has called us to, sanctifying us for our mission that we've been set apart for. Jesus says, sanctify them by the truth, your word is truth. God's word is the guardrails that keeps us from both of those ditches, becoming like the world and removing ourselves from the world. Once in a while, on one of our Shields days, when I've taken Otto and Wilson there, I don't know if you've ever been upstairs at Shields and looked around. If you ever need a tour, just let me know and I'll show you around. But upstairs, right next to the golf area, there's a little bowling alley, only two lanes, and it's a miniature, it's a kid-sized, but there's like little balls that you roll down there and knock the pins over. But there's these bumpers that come up. And Otto thought, first he didn't need the bumpers. Grandpa, I don't need the bumpers. So he soon found out that if you didn't have a bumper, every ball was a gutter ball. And so the bumpers are what keeps it going straight, the direction it should go. And that's what scripture does for us. If we go through life thinking that we don't need the bumpers of scripture, we're gonna end up in a ditch. The thing that sanctifies us, that keeps us going in the direction we should be going, are the bumpers of God's word, because we do this. We're a mess. And we forget and we're selfish and all those things and we bounce around and scripture is what brings us back and sanctifies us, brings us back to the direction we need to be going in. God's word provides the bumpers, keeps us out of the gutters of assimilation and isolation. So Jesus prays that God's word would be the guide for us to do life. Jesus prayed, and I think he's still praying, that scripture would be our go-to on how to do life, how to do marriage, and how to do kids, and raising kids, and how to do priorities, and how to do finances, and all, anything, anything. We need to run through the grid of scripture, and let that be the bumper to guide us in life. And Jesus is praying for that here in this prayer, and I think he's still praying for that. And so to answer this prayer, I think if we could answer it out loud, somebody's saying, you know, I got this situation, I don't know what to do, and I'm worried and I'm afraid, go to Scripture. I just don't know what to do, go to Scripture. And Scripture's everything that we need to keep us going in a way that's honoring to the Lord. And Jesus prayed for that, and I think that he still does. All right, let me land the plane here. We need to remember, and this is something that I think is pretty cool, and I don't know if you thought about this or not. We need to remember that this prayer was spoken out loud for our sake. Jesus prayed a lot of times in the Gospels. He would go off to a quiet place and pray. In the Garden of Gethsemane, he prayed a lot of times. We have no idea what he prayed. This prayer was prayed out loud so that we would know what he prayed. It was prayed out loud for our sake. And with the disciples right there listening, and of course, John listening, because later he would record the words of this prayer. We have a prayer that Jesus wanted us to hear. He wanted us, he wanted the disciples to know that all of this, all of this, what's gonna happen in the next three days is to bring him glory. Everything that came before is to bring him glory. He wanted us, he wanted the disciples to know that he loves us and that he is gonna be praying for our protection. He wanted us to know his will about unity in a church and our lives being guided by the word of God. He wanted us to know that. That's why he prayed this prayer out loud. And He wants us to know that He's still praying for us now. I think one of the purposes of this prayer being out loud so the disciples could hear and John could write it down is He doesn't want us to lose the awe and the worship that we should have for Him as our Savior. Because life can be hard. And in this world there is a lot of trouble. And with the fog of trials and busyness and distractions of life, we can lose sight of our Savior. So I think one of the things this prayer does is it draws us back to Him. It reminds us of His heart for us. And it's like the quote we saw earlier, it's easy to think, you know, Jesus is in heaven, he's kinda getting things ready, I just gotta figure it out here. And Jesus, this prayer is saying, no, I am praying for you. I am praying for you this morning. If you're a Christian, Jesus is praying for you this morning. In this world, you're gonna have trouble. So turn your eyes to Christ. He's praying for us this morning. He's praying for you this morning. And if I could hear Jesus praying in the next room, I'd be a little less afraid, but distance has nothing to do with it. He's praying for us still. He's praying for me still. He's praying for you still. And so, remember, the preface to all this is Jesus said, there's gonna be hard times in this world. And so we started off this morning talking about storms, and if that's your life right now, then the answer is not to try harder and figure it out. I think the first thing is to turn our eyes to Christ, and look at Him, and be reminded from Scripture of who He still is for us, and what He still does for us, praying for us, even right now. If you would, let's stand. We're gonna close with a song. Sing it together, and then we'll be done.