love congregation of our Lord and Savior Jesus Christ. If you ever needed a text, if you ever needed somewhere to go in scripture to answer the question, does God pray for you? Does Jesus pray for you to his Father in heaven? Here is that text. Beginning at verse 20, I do not pray for these alone, but also for those who will believe in me by their word. We see Jesus Christ in his intercession on earth. We've seen together that that points forward to the intercession of Jesus Christ as he sits at the right hand of God the Father, interceding even for us now. Then you add to that from Romans 8, that the Holy Spirit is interceding for us, so that even in our groaning and travail, when we're in the toughest times, that the words don't come, the Spirit moves, bringing our prayers like the smoke from Adam, or rather from Abel, or from Noah on the ark, straight to the living God. cleared up, purified, and made right, and good, and true through the intercessory work of our advocate Jesus Christ, and God the Father hears them. Jesus prays for you. But always in the context of Jesus prays for us. That Jesus prays for us as the church of Jesus Christ. Jesus Christ is praying that we will be part of the mission of God. That we will do the continuing work of Jesus Christ, who rather than from on earth, now from heaven is doing that work. We've seen together the need of the coming of the Holy Spirit. that we will be left on this earth to be brought into the realms of glory, into the mansions of glory, that He has gone to prepare a place for us, that we will be hated in this world, and that we will overcome the world. For now, it's time for Jesus to be glorified with the glory that God the Father gave to Him as He heads to the cross, as He goes to Gethsemane, and then Golgotha, and then the grave. But in three days he will rise again from the dead, and he is Lord, and he is alive. And we serve this risen Jesus Christ who leaves us with this prayer, praying in the hearing and in the vision of the 11, moving John by the Holy Spirit to write down these words. So one more time, as we have over the last three weeks, We get to be part of the intimate conversation from the heart of Jesus, the Son of Man. And that intimate conversation between God, the Father, and God, the Son, within the context of the Trinity. It truly is a beautiful and a remarkable thing. And so what does Jesus pray for? I do not pray for these alone, meaning the 11. but also for those who will believe in me through their word." So that is a given. God is not going to be stopped. The elect are going to be called out of the world. The elect are going to receive the Holy Spirit. The elect are going to receive the word. For as Romans 10 says, how shall they hear without the word? And how shall they hear the word? Without preachers being sent. I am going to send these eleven into the world. I'm going to leave them into the world. And by that word, the elect will be converted, that those who will believe in me through their word. God is not going to be stopped and an amen and a yes and a verily, yes my son, what you are asking me I will do. And now, Father in heaven, I ask that for this future church, for this church that's going to continue to grow on the basis of the faithfulness of the eleven, with the work of the Apostle Paul and Silas and Barnabas, Timothy and Titus, that the church now in embryo is going to grow and mature. We're going to see the work of God the Father in building the kingdom of God giving that power to Jesus Christ, the glory to Jesus Christ, that the church will grow, the Great Commission will take place, and people are going to give their lives to Jesus Christ. And of all the things that Jesus prays for in light of that great truth, and live in that great truth, I think it's important, by the way, because I know sometimes we can get despondent, Why do not more people believe? Why is it that when we bring the gospel, they don't believe? Sometimes we bring it to our children, and our own children don't believe. And we can say, what's the point? Well, look what Jesus is doing. Look what he's asking God the Father to do. That conversion is going to happen. But what's interesting is that Jesus, of all the things he could pray for, prays that they may all be one. It's interesting, isn't it? that they may all be unified. Now what does that oneness mean? How are we to understand it? Now, we live in a world of church federations and denominations. Federation is when like-minded churches come together, make a common profession, but they don't necessarily do everything exactly the same way. Denominations, money is like a denomination. Every loonie looks pretty much the same. Every $10 bill looks kind of the same. Sometimes people call it the Pizza Hut church. Every Pizza Hut looks the same, every menu is the same, and all the churches of that denomination kind of look the same. Is that really now what what we're talking about in terms of this unity? There's been a lot of talk in the reformed world with napark and the icrc What does unity look like? What is that unity? Is it federational? Is it denominational? Is it on the basis of a church order or if we all use the same songbook? All of those things and those things are important insofar as they go But where jesus starts with and the way that he qualifies it make them one father as you, Father, are in me, and I in you, that they also may be one in us, that the world may believe that you sent me." Notice, by the way, who Jesus prays to. That, Father, you will make them one. That they all may be one. Assumes that we're passive in it, at least at the beginning. What is the unity that brings us together? It's that Christ is in us. And how does that happen? So if we take Ephesians chapter 2, the first part of Ephesians chapter 2, we read that the Jew and the Gentile are going to be taken from their unities and brought and unified into one new man, made to be in the image of our Lord and Savior Jesus Christ, and that though we were all sinful, dead in our trespasses and sins, which we just heard and reflected upon when Rita was baptized, that God makes us new. God takes us out of the community of death and brings us into the new community of life. That is Him in us. The only unity that the church can ever have has to start with there. Christ in us. A shared essence. Christ in you, Christ in me. Now that comes by the power of the Holy Spirit, that comes by the word which the disciples are going to preach, but it's the work of the Father in heaven. So for those of us who study sociology and anthropology, even history, atheism, agnosticism, always tells us that any organization that humanity has is always human created. And that humanity then creates different religions. And different religions can then be qualified by what we call unanimity, uniformity, or unity. Unanimity is when we all agree, so when we have a vote, God is 3 in 1, and then we would say, yes, we all vote, God is 3 in 1, and then we simply adhere to that. What happens with that is we soon begin to accept that without thinking about what it means. And this gives place to cult mentality, this gives place to dictatorial leadership, this gives to unthinking sheep who simply say, these are the things that we believe. And by the way, that can happen with us too. That our unanimity on the three forms of unity isn't necessarily unity. if we're not really thinking about what it means, if it's not an expression of the Christ in us, but we think that this is the expression of us to Christ, that it's not a holiness that Christ gives us, but our holiness back to Him, then do you see we move then into the world of traditionalism or unanimity? The other is uniformity. Maybe the easiest way to see uniformity is amongst the Amish. They all have the same amount of buttons. The men, they wear the same haircut, the same color shirt, the same color pants. They do everything the same. They look the same. But when we read Romans chapter 12, and when we read 1 Corinthians chapter 12, we read about unity and diversity, and diversity and unity. That it's the same Spirit, the same Lord in Ephesians chapter 4. One Lord, one faith, one baptism. You are who you are, saved and renewed. Christ is in you. You are now the dwelling of the Holy Spirit. You are the temple of Almighty God. You in the way that God created you. So many snowflakes. sharing the same H2O essence, sharing the same water of life essence that we have in Jesus Christ, and yet each of you fundamentally different than the other one. Jesus is not talking here about uniformity. Now, that doesn't necessarily mean we can't have the same songbook, or that we wouldn't have a church order. These things are the way we begin to express the unity that's within us, looking to that word of the apostles. How do we worship? Go to the word. How do we live? Go to the word. How do we get married? Go to the word. What do we confess? Go to the word. Why? Because we believe that Jesus Christ is the Lord, and He is the word, and He's the revelation of God. that we read that together in the prologue that the word became flesh and made his dwelling among us we have seen his glory the glory of the one and only who came from the father full of grace and truth in jesus we meet the father so as the father and the jesus are one together and that old greek language was homoousius one essence which is interesting because they're spiritual and they don't have an essence And yet the fabric, the wonder of the being of God the Father and God the Son is a unity that they share that can't be completely shared with us, but now is in us because Christ is in us. And that is what unifies us. And I understand the church is broken. And I understand that the church is fragmented and shattered. Simple thing, like baptism. There's some here probably go, why are you baptizing babies? and others of us understand why you wouldn't baptize babies. Sometimes we do a really good job of trying to alienate one another. And yet it's in spite of us that there is a unity of the Holy Catholic Church, the work and the power of Jesus Christ in the body of Christ, sharing in the mission Father, you are in me, you sent me, you sent me to go get them, to reveal you, and now I in them will be the way that you will continue to reveal yourself to the nations and the world. We're unified in a purpose, we're unified in the Great Commission, we're unified in the way of life because God is God. And this is the desire of God. And Jesus prays now with the desire of God and says, this is what I will. This is my desire, and it's exactly the same desire that the Father and the Son give so that we now share in that desire. May the glory which you gave me And I have given them that they may be one just as we are one. Now there's some questions about the glory. This passage, by the way, is somewhat difficult and I'm not going to go into all the differences of opinion. I'll give to you what I think is the best, studying the ancient, studying the modern, working with the text. But there's basically two understandings, and I think perhaps they're joined together. The glory that you gave me, we saw from John 14, is that Jesus is now going to go to the cross. John 13, knowing that all things had been given to him, and he was glorified, he's now gonna go to Golgotha. Let them see that. But then there also seems to be the future glory, that the glory you gave to me when I was with you before I came to the world, let them experience that glory now. So if we take an Old Testament prophetic understanding that something of the now is moving towards something of the future, then we begin to understand it. So that we understand, right, that when someone is baptized into the name of the Father and the Son and the Holy Spirit, they are one with the body of Christ, yet by faith they must embrace that so that they can fight the good fight of faith and receive the crown of salvation of a glory that waits for them. And Jesus says, let them share my glory. And Calvin says that that glory is the sheer happiness of belonging to Jesus Christ as a saved sinner. Someone called out of the darkness into the light. Someone called out of the condemnation of the law into the freedom and the joy of grace and mercy and peace of faith and hope and love. That this glory is shown to us in that setting there on the Mount of Transfiguration. where Peter, James, and John see Jesus, and He's glorified before them, so that on earth they have a taste of heaven, so that that will continue, which they preach about after the resurrection, that on this earth, as we gather together as the people of God, or where two or three are gathered in the name of Jesus Christ, it's never good for a Christian to be alone. For in the presence of the other Christian, we find the Christ in them person, which brings to us the joy and the glory and the hope of life everlasting, imperfect now, looking forward to the perfect unity we will have when Christ will come again. Why? Because that's where God commands the blessing. So now to Psalm 133. The father of Jesus writes how good and pleasant it is when brothers live together in unity. You sang it. It's like the precious oil poured on the head, running down on the beard, running down on Aaron's beard, down the collar of his robes. It is as if the dew of Hermon were falling on Mount Zion, for there the Lord bestows his blessing. Life forevermore. You know, when David was anointed by Samuel, it took more than 22 years for him to finally ascend to the throne. Israel was a conglomerate of 12 tribes, and each tribe broken up into clans. There was a disunity. Deuteronomy 18 spoke about the need for a king. and that the Lord was going to send a king. But when Samuel was dying and the people were afraid, they said, give us a king. And God gave them the king. Basically after their own choosing, he gave them the king Saul. And though Saul won many battles and the Lord accomplished some amazing things for him, Saul was not that king who would bring them together. So when Saul dies, the 10 tribes follow David as their king. But for seven and a half years, Judah and Benjamin Rather, Judah and Benjamin followed David and the ten tribes refused to follow David because their allegiance was to King Saul. Seven and a half more years. And then God brings the kingdom together under David. And they had peace. And the enemies were at bay. Though he wanted to build a temple, he couldn't. Solomon was going to build a temple. But now that's going to be there. Now we have the development of a culture. the development of a people, the development of blessings, so amazing and so beautiful, that when David looks out his window and he sees Jerusalem, and he sees the people gathering there by the tabernacle when he finally brings it home, and he says, how good, how good it is when brothers dwell together in unity. There, God commands the blessing. You see why the devil works so hard to break us apart? And he did really well during COVID, didn't he? And we did really poorly, didn't we? And it's still in us. We don't hear the prayer, we don't think of the prayer. What is the desire? Do we see Christ in the other? From that position, let's have the discussion about baptism. From that position, we'll talk about the things of life and salvation. But out of what Christ is doing, And that's always a struggle for us. If you don't believe these things, then you're not saved. You're not one with me. And yet to still be strong and sure in the things that you believe. And how do we do that and do that well? And yet at the end of the day, the church is still going forward as a unified army by the will of this great and glorious God. There God commands the blessing. So what do we see? We see Solomon come, and we see Solomon with the Material that David is given, under the peace that David has provided, builds the temple. And then what does he do when it's time for the temple to come? The smoke fills the temple, and Solomon prays and dedicates the temple. And then you see what your Jesus is doing. Jesus is praying for and dedicating the new temple. Not the temple that everybody walks to, to get to God. But the temple that's going to go out into the world. Do you not know? that you are temples of the Holy Spirit, 1 Corinthians 6. The group, us, but then each one of you. Do you not know that the Holy Spirit lives in you? Do you not know that Christ lives in you? That we share in this prayer, active now in this prayer, that we know it's passive, the unity is given to us, now we're active in and out of it, so that the Lord God would be praised. And we do nothing to stand in the way of that. And yet there's always the balance. What does the word say and stick to that word? Being humble enough to admit that we just don't understand every part of this word. And yet we think of Jesus even now in this day, praying for the harmony and the unity of the church. That the world may know that you have sent me and have loved them as you love me. This union is first of all experienced and in the local congregation. It's broadly there in the Holy Catholic Church, but it is to be experienced in your local church. Because that's where we go out, that's where we find each other, that's where we love one another. With the love that Christ gave us. If Christ is love, if Christ is the love of God the Father to us, if God so loved the world that He gave Christ, then it's love, isn't it? It's the love that unifies us together and is the expression of that unity. And I'm here to tell you, I don't believe there's any community in the world like the church. They keep trying. You can find the unanimity and uniformity of Islam, or of Judaism, or of Hinduism, or of humanism, or that the political world, socialism and communism, even capitalism, perhaps is going to create utopia. It can't. The only way you'll ever be really free to be who you are is in Christ. The only way you'll ever be able to be free with other people is to be found in the Church of Jesus Christ. And then the Church of Jesus Christ must never be the place of shame, but the place of healing. It must never be the place of judgmentalism, but the place of repentance and forgiveness. It must never be the place of cheap grace, but of disciplined, loving service to one another. Jesus' prayer is being answered, and we pray that it is answered here in this congregation, all of Him, taking all of me and you, and all of us, that the world can see, and the more that the world sees the harmony and unity and love of God in the church, the more they'll hate us, or the elect are gonna run and say, where can I join, how can I come, where can I find it? Jesus continues, and He says, Father, I desire that they also whom you gave me may be with me, where I am, that they may behold my glory, which you have given me. For you love me before the foundation of the world. O righteous father, the world has not known you, but I have known you, and these have known that you sent me. And I have declared to them your name, and will declare it, that the love which you loved me may be in them, and I in them. Now Jesus Christ is praying for the preservation of the church. Now Jesus Christ is praying as the Good Shepherd. I lay down my life for the sheep, and I will pick up my life again. He's already prayed, Lord God, sanctify me that I may now sanctify them. Father in heaven, bring me into the glory of the depths of my humility as I go now to the cross and I hang there as the forsaken one, as I die with their sins hanging upon me, that they may now approach God. The greatest gift of Christianity is not the forgiveness of sins. It's being made one with God again. the restoration of the image of God in us that can only come by way of the forgiveness of sins to be sure this is not to belittle it but you and I will go to live with Jesus we will soon be done with the trouble of the world and we're going home to live with God and we will see the Lamb of God we will see the angels but we will be where God is Father preserve them I lay down my life for them. Lose none of them that you have given to me. Though they walk through the valley of the shadow of death, let them fear no evil. Redeem them and seat them at your table, that they may dwell in the house of the Lord forever, that they may behold the glory which you have given me before the foundation of the world. And then he says, O righteous father, Preserve them from the judgment. So I remember two weeks ago. We talked about that What dr. Vin Dick's horn had pointed out in his speech that Jesus came to save you from Jesus Jesus is going to come again to judge the living and the dead Yes, God so loved the world that he sent his son not to condemn the world though to save the world this is the work that Christ has come for and this is the work that we have been called to do and Although Jesus made it clear as we go out into this world, it's going to bring judgment to this world because all these people who see us and don't come will be judged because they didn't come and they didn't give their life. And woe to the child. Woe to the people of this congregation who walk away without faith. That's no little thing. Righteous Father, the world does not know you. God so loved the world, that whoever believes he gave eternal life, John 3, 70, but he who does not believe is condemned already. Send them into that world, preserve them, let the world know that they are loved. You call them out of the world, but Father in heaven, righteous Father, preserve them from judgment. On the day of judgment, declare them innocent, that they may share the great glory of heaven, the great glory of perfection. the great glory of the bond of perfect unity, the restoration of the image of God as prophets, priests, and kings, rightly knowing, confessing, and living for this almighty God, the perfect expression of Christ in us and Christ together in us. No, the world doesn't know you, but I know you. And I have declared to them your name and will declare it. that the love which you love me may be in them and I in them and again one more time when we read the high priestly prayer in light of Numbers chapter 6 Aaron when you greet the people and now Jesus greets the people and he names them putting the name of God upon them giving the blessings upon them praying for the unity that God will give because there he gives the blessing he'll bless the thing that he gives how great is God so that they now will know the name of the Lord God, and that name of Jesus Christ we bear. So that when the water of baptism comes upon the head of anyone, they now share the name Christian, child of God. As Revelation speaks to us, the name of God on our foreheads, baptism. Now you need to respond to that name. You need to say, I am that name. But all of us who share that name, that same familial name, that same communal name, will know the glory and the wonder of life forevermore, where God will love us with the love that He loved the Son. And then I go to 1 Corinthians 13 and verse 13. For now we know in part, but then you will know fully. You do not know, you Christians in this room, and me too, we have no clue how loved we really are. How deeply does the Father love the Son? That's how deeply He loves you, and Jesus prays for that. We won't know that to perfection because we live in sin. Brokenness and our own doubts and our own temptations, but one day we will do you long for that Do you hope for that Jesus is praying that for you that you'll know it that you'll live out of it That'll be beautiful and glorious for you. This is what Jesus prays for As he brings his amen and walks now to the cross As he's gonna wrestle with the cup in Gethsemane As he hangs there on the cross, my God, why have you forsaken me? As he lays there quiet in the womb. That's who he prays for. Sanctify me, Father, that you may be glorified. Bless the work of the disciples. Hold them close. Keep them strong in this world that your name may be glorified. Bless all of those who believe with unity in your love and my love to them. for your glory father that your name may be praised behold the son of Melchizedek behold the son of David behold Solomon praying for the people of God how good and pleasant it is when brothers live together in unity for there the Lord bestows his blessing life forevermore One Lord, one faith, one baptism, one God over all. To God alone be the glory, both now and forevermore. Amen. Let's pray.