I ask you then to turn with us to John Chapter 17. John Chapter 17. Of course, those of you that are members here know that I've been preaching through this Gospel for some time. The Lord will and has interrupted that from one Sunday to another, but for the most part we've been looking at the Gospel of John for really 20 months now. I have, from that first sermon, had in my mind and in my heart and in my thoughts an anticipation of this 17th chapter. All of Scripture is good and profitable and useful and true. I believe that the Bible is the absolute source of truth in the world today. has been since originally written and continues to be today. My assumption was, as I had this 17th chapter in my mind, as we inevitably and inexorably continued to work our way toward it, that we might be in this 17th chapter, and for those of you who know me, weeks and weeks on end. There is surely enough here to spend months and months in specific contemplation and meditation and prayer. One mountaintop after another could be attained where a greater and greater vision of the Lord and of God is discovered and seen in ways that the human heart can't fully feel, the human mind can't fully fathom, and the human tongue certainly can't fully describe. But what has materialized is one that will no doubt be one little sermon on one great chapter. While I have been looking forward to this 17th chapter of the Gospel of John, that anticipation has been accompanied with a measure of dread. Not dread of the content of the chapter, but as what I know will be my inability to explain and describe all that this chapter means. My inability to explain in even the smallest way the majesty and the greatness of this, the Lord's Prayer. It's interesting to me that we often call, and it's not wrong to do so, we call the prayer that Jesus gave to us and the model that he gave to us on how to pray, we call that the Lord's Prayer, when really, the Lord's Prayer is found here in John 17. The prayer that we call the Lord's Prayer really is the prayer God gave to us as a model, but this is the one that Jesus prayed himself. I am thankful that God has used various men and inspired others, not with scripture, but have impressed others to write down their views, their perception of this chapter. And I want to read just a few of those comments so that it might capture what maybe my words never could. R.H. Linsky said this about this chapter, this prayer is to deepen and to intensify all that the last discourses contain, speaking, of course, from chapter 14 to now. Its power, Lenski says, is to work in the hearts of the disciples throughout the coming days, and we know what those days will hold. Jesus does not pray with the disciples, does not ask them to lift up their hearts and to join him in prayer, as we do at times when saying farewell, and that's what Jesus is now doing. This prayer lies on a plane that is so exalted that no disciple can join in its utterance. Jesus prays before his disciples. They can only witness this prayer. Its serenity, its majesty, and its authority befit only the heart and the lips of him who is the Son of God. Before this prayer, all our prayers fade like candles in the sun. The 17th chapter, the simplest and yet deepest and sublimest in the whole Bible, contains the high priestly prayer of our Lord, so called because he here intercedes for his people and enters upon his function as the high priest and offering his own life as a perfect sacrifice for the sins of the whole world. There are several prayers of Jesus recorded in the New Testament, the model prayer for his disciples, thanksgivings, the petition and Gethsemane and the exclamation on the cross. Father, forgive them. The high priestly prayer spoken in the stillness of the night under the starry heavens. before the wondering disciples in view of the approaching consummation of his work for himself, his apostles, and his church to the end of time is peculiarly his own. The inspiration of his grand mission and could be uttered only by Christ and even by Christ only once in the world's history as the atonement could occur but once, but its effects vibrate throughout all ages. And finally, We find he prays as the mighty intercessor and mediator standing between earth and heaven, looking backward and forward and comprehending all his present and future disciples in one holy and perfect fellowship with himself and the eternal Father. The words are as clear and as calm as a mirror, but the sentiments as deep and glowing as God's fathomless love to man and all efforts to exhaust them are in vain. We could go on and on about the impress and the impact that this chapter has had on men and women through the years. In recognizing my weakness today and calling upon God to enable me somehow to at least maybe climb the foothills of this chapter, we want to look at John 17. And we note, before we begin our reading, that it begins with these words when Jesus had spoken these words, referring back again from the discourse that began back in John, chapter 14, when Jesus told his disciples to let not their heart be troubled. We then goes on and speaks to them and teaches them about the Spirit's work, the Holy Spirit, his work in the world, his work in our own hearts. How we are to abide in Christ as vines in the branch, or as branches in the vine. How we are to love one another, to expect the hatred of the world, the anticipation of our sorrow turning to joy. All of these things just presently in view and in mind, and these chapters in the Bible do not disconnect the one setting that all of these things have been said. And so with these things in mind, we read, 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 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 have I sent them into the world, and for their sake I consecrate myself that they may also be sanctified in truth. I do not ask for these only, but also for those who will believe in me through their 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. 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 that you have sent, these know you that have sent me, 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." It's the entirety of the 17th chapter of the Gospel of John. The Lord's Prayer. That would be our title for the message today. The Lord's Prayer. Jesus begins this prayer with a request that His Father would glorify Him. The word glorify is a tricky word. It's a little difficult. I think we inherently understand what it is saying and what it means, but to put a very fine point on what the word means is a little bit tricky. You look up the original word in the Greek and you find even among The scholars such as Strongs and Launayda and other people that put concordances and dictionaries together, that they don't describe it or define it in exactly the same way. Strongs says that this word is praise or to speak words of glory, honor, attribute high status. Launayda says it's to make gloriously great, to glorify, which I left a little bit frustrated because he defined the word with the word. Webster, using the English dictionary of the noun glory, it's brightness, luster, splendor, magnificence. What is the sense here? When Jesus prays to His Father for Him to glorify the Son, what is Jesus saying? What is this sense? I believe that it is a request that the Father reveal in all of his majesty and his splendor, and it would reveal Christ to the world. It would make him known. That's one way that I think of this word, having studied it in the past. To glorify is to make someone obvious and known. To point them out. And Jesus prays that the father would point him out to the world, that the world might see him. That the whole world, you and me, everyone that was alive then, everyone that ever has been alive since this time, Jesus says, God, glorify me, show me to the world. Now, why did he pray this? Why would Jesus pray this of the Father, that God, over these next hours of this life that you've sent me to live here, that is going to be full of agony and pain beyond description, why does Jesus say to reveal this to the world, to glorify Him in this hour? I would say to you that the reason that He does is there isn't a single problem in all the world. and we face many of them today. We've heard the struggles even this morning among our number of the concerns and the suffering of this life. I would say that Jesus says to God, glorify me, that the world might see me in these next few days as I pay the penalty of sin. He does this because there isn't a single problem in all the world that does not find a path toward its solution. If you see Christ on the cross. Not a single problem in your life or mine that does not begin to head in a direction of a solution, an answer, a reason when we see Christ on the cross. When we see Him as He moves forward from this prayer and is betrayed by these men, all of them. Peter, of course, with the famous denial, but they all scattered. We see the hurt that must have caused him in his humanity as his friends left and departed and separated and scattered as he was betrayed by this Judas, turned over to the Jews and the mockery of the trial that he endured, the shame of the trial as they spit on him and struck him, though he'd done nothing wrong to any of them. When we start to look at this and see this, We begin to understand that Christ endured hardship here so that we might have glory and peace and prosperity eternally with Him in heaven as we see Him, and we see the shame of that trial. by the Jews and then the Romans, the pain of the beating and the whipping that he took from the soldiers, the exhaustion of his body as they laid that cross beam on his raw and bloody back to take and walk up the hill to Calvary. As we see this, as Jesus says, Father, glorify me, show this to the world. Don't hide it from their eyes. Don't dismiss it from their attention. God, make it be that they don't live their lives day by day so wrapped up with the time in which they're living. They don't see the eternity that I am buying for them. Whatever problem that you're facing, whatever sorrow that you're feeling, there is a remedy found in Christ. And so he says, Father, glorify me, show me to the world. Show the agony of those nails as they go through my hands or his wrist. The hand was considered the wrist then and the feet as they held him fast to that cross. I ask you, what challenge and struggle in your life does not begin to take on a different focus when you see Christ like this? So Jesus says, glorify me. Show me to the world. I don't know everything you're facing. I don't know all of them as a church. We share much together. And that is a joy, as we have already heard this morning in testimony. to be able to come together with those that we love and know love us and share together in Christ to be able to bear one another's burdens and encourage one another and pray with one another and cry with one another and laugh with one another. But there's a place inside of all of your hearts that only God goes. And I don't know the deepest, darkest times of your life, but I know that God does. And I don't know your dreams and your hopes and your aspirations, but I do know that there's not a single part of your life that will not be improved when you rightly see Christ glorified by the Father, especially and particularly in these few days as he dies in the place of sinners. We note here Jesus' desire is then in turn to glorify the Father. I know most of you, if not all of you, most of you have heard the gospel many times. Maybe someone hearing though hasn't. I know, though, that many of us have heard about Jesus and the gospel from the time that we were small children, maybe even in the womb. I know it's likely true that you can't count the number of sermons that you've heard. The number of preachers who have done what they could to present the word to you and the gospel message of God's love to the world that he sent his son, loved it so much that he sent his son to pay the price that none of us could pay. You've heard that message again and again. You've seen Christmas program after Christmas program. You've seen the children act out the scene of Christ's birth and the coming of the wise men. And you've seen it and heard it again and again and again. But I ask you to stop with me a moment this morning and hear Jesus say, Father, glorify me in this. See him. Hear him. Show the world, God says, who I am. Show the world what I'm going to endure for them. Show them my pain. my shame, my agony and my death. All of these things open their eyes to the truth of man's brutality against other men. Open their eyes to their own sin as they look upon me on the cross. One of the greatest dangers of not presenting to man his sinfulness, and it's not politically correct anymore and hasn't been for some time, to point this out. But the problem with removing the idea of sin and its fully enveloped reality in the human heart, the problem with not preaching about sin is it completely disconnects the reason that Jesus went to the cross. That's all. That's what he did. He came into the world that needed him. Did he come from heaven above with joy and fellowship with the Father just so that he might show us how much he loves us by dying for us? Yes, but that's just scratching the surface of what Jesus did on the cross. Some I remember and you maybe remember Mel Gibson's movie some years ago now, probably a dozen years ago. And whether you liked it or not, I remember leaving the movie. And I remember even hearing a comment here and there, how much Jesus loved us. And I thought, yes. But how much did he love his father, because what he did? On that cross was take your sin and mine. And when they put that cross beam on his back, what he was doing was taking your sin and mine upon his back and nailing it to a cross. And Jesus says, glorify me, Father, in this time so that people can see what I'm doing for them. One of the greatest problems in all the world today is people don't see what Jesus has done for man. And we don't see what Jesus has done for us because we don't admit and recognize our shortcoming, our failure. Did anybody teach you how to sin? I doubt it. Came pre-programmed. The good news of the gospel is that Jesus took it upon himself on the cross and he says to his father, glorify me that I then might glorify you. I know you've heard the gospel again and again. But hear it from Jesus this morning through the Holy Spirit, I pray that he would drive it into your hearts as though the nails of his cross as they drove him upon that cross, that the truth of the gospel would drive into your heart and much the same way. You would feel what Jesus did for you. But Father, show them me so that I might show them you. Jesus came to the world of his own will. No one forced him. Do you think all the armies of all of mankind throughout all of history, if they were assembled together under the greatest leadership and the greatest military minds that men have ever come up with, do you think they could have put Jesus Christ, the son of God on the cross? Of course not. In a moment, he could have called legions of angels to deliver him from that place, but he willingly laid down his life. But He was sent by the Father. God sent the Son, not against His will, but God sent Him. Do you remember what John has already said in the most quoted scripture in all of the Bible, perhaps in all of the world by unbeliever and believer alike? For God so loved the world that he gave his only begotten son, that whoever believes in him might not perish, but have eternal life. John 3, 16. Repeatedly in John, Jesus says he was sent by his father. So yes, you've heard it again and again, but hear it anew today, the unspeakable love of the Father for the world, for you and for me. John 17, 26, the last verse of this chapter, I made known to them your name, Jesus says, I will continue to make it known. And if you can even begin to grasp the depth of what He says next, it'll change your life. to make it known that the love with which you, Father, have loved me may be in them, and I in them. I don't think we could even begin to scratch the surface to explain the love that the Father has for the Son. But Jesus just said, Father, the love that you have for me, I pray that it is in them. God loves you and desires to have fellowship with you. That's why he created you. It's the only reason he created you. Give me one other purpose and meaning for life that goes beyond a mere moment or a few years or decades. We spend our lives, and we ought to be financially responsible. The scriptures tell us to, but we spend our lives thinking about those last wonderful years that we call retirement We don't think about the eternity that's coming thereafter. Can you begin to describe this verse? Can a preacher ever come close to the significance of the truth that God wants to have you feel and experience and know His love, the love that He has indeed for His very own Son? Father, glorify me, He says. And He says in verses 2 and 3, that His desire is for men to find, men and women, humanity, to find eternal life in God. Is that not what He says? 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. It would be, I'm afraid, an enlightening and perhaps even discouraging exercise to ask a random sampling of professing Christians what they believe eternal life is all about and what it will be about for the unending reality that is eternity. Songs have moved many to tears and joy even at the anticipation of streets of gold and family reunions that never end and enjoyment of hobbies and health forever. But I want to ask you a question. You're going here for eternity. How quickly will the streets of gold begin to fade? How quickly will they just become commonplace and normal? I visited San Diego on a business trip once and the joke is, right, the weather report never changes. It's always just perfect. And then I was speaking with people that lived there and they said, yeah, it gets really old. I'd love to see some rain and cold every now and then. And I'm thinking from Indiana and Missouri before this, this would be great. They say, yeah, it gets old. We even got, this is a place on the planet I never thought I was going to be able to knock off my bucket list. I went to Hawaii once, and when we got there, it began to dawn on us, the island, I think it was Maui, what is it, two miles long and just maybe half a mile wide? I don't, whatever that it is, I'm thinking, I'm a six-hour plane ride from anywhere. This would get claustrophobic. So many have this idea of heaven that is so far below what it actually is according to scripture. How soon would the mansions just be like a typical house? When will the one car garage that you long to be a two car garage and that gets old in the three car and then this and that, all of these other treasures and trinkets of this life, somehow we project into heaven and think that's going to be heaven. That eternal life is this free ticket from Christ on the cross to live and to do whatever we want to do forever. I'm 47 years old. I feel older than that and I know I'm not. One of the things as you start to get older, you start to realize I don't want to live here for eternity. Ponce de Leon had it wrong. I don't want to find the fountain of youth here But I have a home in heaven with God, the very God who called me from nothingness, called me to life. What else gave you this life? Are you here from a cosmic accident of time, space, and chances, Ravi Zacharias used to say? Or did somebody make you on purpose? I would say to you today that your inward heart knows the right answer to that question. You know there's more to this life. How soon would those with the luster of the streets of gold go completely unnoticed? Jesus corrects this wrong view of eternal life when he tells us this is eternal life to know God. to know them. The knowledge of God will never grow old. It will never disappoint. It will leave us eternally fulfilled, eternally in awe. You know, as I thought about that, I thought, you know, when you have small children and it's such a joy. Mine are not small anymore. But I remember them and the awe that they had of the world around them. And their just sheer joy. And as we bought a house, not in the country by any means, but it was out a ways from the from the town that we lived in, and there were cows around us. And Liam, one time, as we got moved into this house, we where's Liam, we didn't know where was about an acre, two acres, maybe it wasn't all ours. But he was walking over to a cow by the fence and just standing there just amazed. I can't amaze either one of these two anymore. and that's normal and I'm not amazed. This is not an accusation against them. They're like all of us. I'm not amazed, but I should be. Look at the clouds and the sky and the sun and the trees that somehow breathe that we exhale and we breathe in what they exhale and I, the love that I can feel for you and for me and the communication that we can have together and the joy of knowing that God gave us a mind and a heart and a complex reality of what it is to be human and we can share this together because God gave it to us. Defy us to not be at all in awe of God, every moment of our life. And God and the knowledge of God will never leave you without awe. You will be eternally grateful for every moment of eternity that goes on and on and on, and you'll never grow weary of it. I ask you, is there anything in your life you have not grown weary of before? Even the thing you are after. The things that we think will satisfy and people have this idea that Christianity is this ticket to this paradise. Separate from the reality that what it is, is to know God. To know our creator. To know the one who went to the cross and died for us. If you don't know God, I know the hollowness of that empty spot in your heart. I know it, I felt it. I felt it when I was 11 years old, and I've been told I was saved from a child, and answering the right questions, doing the right religious things, going to Bible drill, memorizing scripture. I'd done the right things, but when I was 11 years old, By the Spirit of God, as He convicted my heart, I realized I didn't have eternal life because I didn't know God. I wasn't saved. But in seeking Him, because I heard on that day, this very passage of John 3.16, that's the verse I heard, and it was like I'd heard it for the first time. God loved me and sent His Son to die for me because I'm a sinner and I can know Him. If you aren't saved, you don't know God. I know the hollowness of that feeling. He gave me eternal life when He saved me. He does the same for all others. And that's what eternal life is. It is to know God. According to Jesus' prayer here, it is to know God. I know Him, the Almighty Maker of heaven and earth, the Holy One, around whom even the righteous angels cover their face with two of their six wings and fly and are right now circling the throne of heaven. You read about them in Isaiah and 800 years. You read about them again in Revelation and they're doing the same thing. I believe they're doing it yet today, even now, circling the throne of this Almighty One who I know and they are saying, holy, holy, holy is the Lord God Almighty. I know Him. I wouldn't want to live for eternity. if I didn't know him. But I do. Because of what Jesus did for me. If you're saved, but the vibrancy and zeal of your Christian life has grown cold and perhaps a bit lifeless, and I don't believe that that candle will ever go out entirely, but if it's cold and there's some indifference that's set up in your heart, Set your eyes upon what Jesus says here. Christianity, like heaven and eternity itself, is not about the things that attend it. Christianity, like heaven itself, is not about the things that attend it. It's not about the streets, which John said, by the way, weren't gold. It says it was as if they were gold. He was trying to describe in human language what no man could ever fully describe. But Christianity, like heaven itself, is not about the things that attend it. It isn't about church activities itself. Those are good and helpful. It isn't about doing good deeds. It isn't about convincing me or you or someone else that we're all good Christian people. It's about knowing God. That's what it's about. Set down the burdens you can never bear yourself anyway and experience again the joy and the peace that comes with the knowledge that you know God. Jesus prays for his people in verses eight and nine. I've given them the words that you gave me and they have received them and come to know in truth that I came from you and they have believed that you sent me. I am praying for them. I'm not praying for the world. Jesus prays for his people and he prays a few different things, one that they would be one, they would be unified. Our nation is reeling from division today. It's an open wound in our country. Division, strife, And as our nation reels from that division, we are reminded here of the Lord's desire that His people be united. A people that we read from revelation of the same writer, the Apostle John, who will come from every tribe, every tongue and every nation. The unifying thing among humanity, the only great and true unity thing, unifying thing that will last eternally is God in Christ. And that is the unifier of the world. The greatest cause of unity in the world is the gospel of Jesus Christ. And yet, that's the thing we're dismissing as a nation, and we wonder why we're divided. We're divided because we've dismissed the only thing that can really unite us, no matter skin color, heritage, ethnicity, and even political opinion. Look, politics have been divided since Jefferson and Adams. Terribly divided. But I'll tell you this, their division was over a means, not an end. Both believed in liberty, in life, in the pursuit of that that God has given to us, the pursuit of happiness, which we know is to know God. The greatest cause of unity in the world is the gospel of Christ, but it seems to me, it seems to me, if I can say this, it seems to me that people are seeking unity built on retribution over others' sins in the past, when the gospel is about the forgiveness of our sins in the present. And so long as we're focused on other people's sins in the past, somehow trying to make retribution, Even if it's right or misled or whatever way that it is the gospel is not about. Others it's about my heart before God. And that is what brings peace. And we notice the degree of unity that Jesus is asking for his people when he says that they may be one, even father, as we are in verse 11 and verse 22. There is no implied unity that he's praying for, no fake unity that he's praying for, no surface level unity, no falsehood. It is a unity in truth and in reality that we would be one. And my, what a wonderful day it would be for our nation once again to be unified in the belief of God. And the wounds that it would heal overnight. He prays secondly that his people would be kept while they're in the world. I won't take the time to read the verses but 11 through 15. You go back and read those verses. He desires that his people would be kept by God. He says, Father, I'm leaving. Keep your people. So God keeps his people. You're kept. If you're God's, God keeps you. You don't. Thanks be to God for that. Jesus did not pray that you and I would be kept by our good works, by our wisdom, by our strength. He says, Father, keep them. And this is our assurance that God will keep his children, and no one takes them from his hand, and Jesus prays to this end. God, Father, keep them. Keep them in a world that, according to verse 14, hates them. We've talked about that. Jesus prepared us. The world's gonna hate you for this testimony. Jesus did not pray, though, that they would be kept from struggle. from difficulty and hardship. He doesn't even pray that they be kept from those who hate them. He prays that they would be kept in the midst of it, kept in the world, but not of the world, as he says twice. Jesus did not pray that God would remove us from the trouble and danger of the world. He prayed that God would keep us while we are facing that trouble and trial of the world. Now, Jesus didn't pray. This is something that I'm gonna take with me from this study. If Jesus didn't pray that I be delivered from this world and out of this world and delivered from the troubles and the sorrow that accompany it, I probably shouldn't either. It does not mean that we can't pray, God, help me through it. If it's your will, see me away from it. But Father, most importantly, keep me near you in it. He praised His people in verse 16-19. This is, by the way, those mountaintops that we could climb over and over and over again. All three of these. That they'd be sanctified. He praised that His people would be sanctified in 16-19. While in the world, but not of the world, we are to strive for greater and greater sanctification in Christ. Sanctification in truth, which is this book. The Word of God. And this is the Word that became flesh. It's not just letters on a page. To know this book rightly is to know the Word, which we heard in the very beginning of these messages on the Gospel of John. In the beginning was the Word, and the Word was with God, and the Word was God. The same was in the beginning with God. Talking about Jesus Christ, to know this Bible is to know Christ. But this Bible that we've been given. Is the anchor that will hold our lives near to him, and Jesus says, sanctify them in it. Sanctification in being sent even, by the way, into the world. As Jesus was sent into the world, Jesus says, I send them into the world to bring light to darkness, to bring love, hate, to bring joy to sorrow, to bring hope to hopelessness, to bring eternal life to those dead in sin, to suffer for the cause of God, to lay down our lives in obedience to the Father. Sanctification is made objective in the Word of God, in Galatians chapter 5, in the fruits of the Spirit. Love, joy, peace, patience, kindness, goodness, faithfulness, gentleness, self-control. Young person, those are the things you should be striving for in your life. Not the silly promises of a world that doesn't know God. Finally, as we move toward our conclusion today, perhaps in my mind, one of the highest places we can climb in this chapter is in verse 20. I do not ask for these only, Jesus says, but also for those who will believe in me through their word. This is perhaps where I feel my weakness of expression the most. This is the mountaintop. I do not believe I will ever fully scale while I remain in this body of sin and on this side of eternity. I am in awe of this verse. Jesus Christ prayed for me and for you. He knew you when he prayed it. He knew the struggle you're facing right now. And the Son of God, without whom nothing was made that was made, prayed for you. He prayed to His Father on your behalf. I'm with the psalmist in Psalm 84 when he says, What is man that you are mindful of him? Yet God is mindful of us. So much so that He sent His Son to die for us and here even He prays for us. All that He desired for those who were with Him then He prays for you and me right now. All those things that we've just talked about, He desires for you. And He desires for every one of His children, those who came after, these men that were hearing this prayer themselves in their natural ears, and what a privilege that must have been to stand back and to hear Jesus, the Son of God, talk to His Father and the, The impression almost it must have been like a like a physical weight or a physical feeling that would come across him when they hear Jesus say, Father, I pray for them. Be with them in the world and to hear him, and we remark again, the apostles never asked Jesus to teach us how to preach. They said, teach us how to pray. Teach me how to live a life that's successful. Teach me how to make all my relationships wonderful. Teach me how to be financially prosperous. Teach me how to be all of these things in the world. And they didn't ask him any of those things. They never even asked him how to fish. The few times he told them how to, they disagreed. But in obedience to him, they found his way as always was and is the right way. We may not and should not ever ask God for anything more important than this. Jesus, God, teach me how how to pray. And as they heard this, think of it. Think of it as we hear it, as Jesus prays for you and me to be one. It means we can be one with Abraham, David, Daniel, Isaiah, Peter, John, Mary, Martha, Rahab, beyond scripture, William, Tyndale, whose last words before he was strangled and burned at the stake, God opened the king of England's eyes so that people may be able to read your word and read these precious words that you have given to men. God opened his eyes somehow that you might be able to shine your light and glorify your son so that they might see you. We're going to be one with him. Hudson Taylor, Adoniram Judson, these men, and on and on and on we could go, and women who were such an example and heroes to us in the faith, we can be one with them and are to be. And kept in the same way God has kept all his people through all ages, sanctified together with God's people from every time and every place, surely this is a spiritual summit. that will ever and always be above me in this life. But all that means is that I will have a purpose for every day of my life to climb higher and higher towards the pinnacle of what God wants me to become in Christ Jesus in my life. And the same goes for you. He wants you to be sanctified and to come closer to Him. And though it is always a summit that we feel in us innately that will never come to the top of it here, it's still not discouraging or frustrating because we know one day yet we will. When this body of sin pays its penalty, which is death, and my spirit and my soul instantly are with my Father in heaven, I will see what I now see darkly. I will see right before me. And I will be one with God and with the others that know Him. There are going to be days here in this world where the climbing to this spiritual summit is going to be difficult. The enemy is going to have a distraction after distraction for you. He's gonna prevent you from trying to climb higher, to enjoy the fruit of Christ's prayer here. There's gonna be days when it's difficult and the wind on the mountainside grows cold and it howls in your ears to such a point that it might be hard and difficult to hear God. The fellowship of brothers and sisters is not enjoyed. The next foothold or handhold on the side of the mountain is seemingly beyond our reach. But whether it's good times or bad times, may I just keep climbing, ever and always climbing, and continually strengthened by John chapter 17, verse 20, when my Savior, my Captain, my Lord, and my King says, I am praying for you. Keep climbing. Keep going. Conclusion. Jesus prays in John 17. I'm just going to read this. Jesus prays in John 17 for his father to glorify him in his hour of suffering, pain and death. He prayed that men would find eternal life, which he defines as the knowledge of God. He prayed that his people would be united, kept, and sanctified. He prayed for John, Peter, and Nathanael, and each of the 11 that were with him on this day. And he prayed for everyone who has believed what they witnessed and proclaimed about Jesus of Nazareth. I said in the beginning, there is enough here for months and months of study, meditation, and discussion. And I was not exaggerating. What's important now, though, What's important now is what God is bringing to your heart at this moment. What is He telling you? Not what am I telling you. If I do what I'm called to do, I'm just telling you what He told you. What is He telling you? What is He speaking to your heart? That's what's important now. The things He makes clear. that I could only begin to describe. My prayer for you, which is as Linsky said it was, a candle next to the sun of Christ's prayer, yet is sincere all the same, is that you, if you don't know Him, you know Christ, you come to know Him today, you seek Him until you find Him, until you know Him, you. I'm going to stand before Jesus Christ one day. One day soon, one day far off, I don't know. But I know this, I will stand before Him. There will be no advocate for me outside of Christ Himself. Don't step into eternity on the word of some other man, however wonderful and great they might be. Step into eternity knowing I know him and he knows me. That relationship is real. Make that a way for you. May there be a way made today for you to come to know God, pass from spiritual death to spiritual life. You would not leave here with a hope of heaven only, but a sure and certain knowledge of your eternal destination with God in heaven. If you do know Him, I pray that you would bask in the wonder of this prayer of the Lord. That you would be strong and of good courage, knowing that the captain of your salvation has gone before you and is God Himself who keeps you. I am one of the poorest Examples of an individual who does a good job at showing his love for others. But I love you. But God loves you. And he demonstrated it in an undeniable way when he sent his son. Because without him we have no hope, but with him we have all hope. There's nothing in this world that we can cling to. that will hold us steady in the times in which we live. But this has always been the case. You know that saying, all new news is just old news happening to new people? Society, nations, men and women, and families and churches have experienced trouble and challenging times all through history. That's not unique. but those that faced it with God, faced it with great assurance and confidence. We pray that you face it that way today. Let's have a song.