John 17:6-19 - “Father, I Pray For Those You Gave Me”

Main Idea: Jesus prays for your protection and your purpose.

GOD’S PEOPLE NEED HIS DIVINE PROTECTION

• We need protection from our bent towards division and disunity.

• We need protection from a world that wants to draw us from God.

• We need protection from a Devil that seeks our destruction.

GOD HAS GIVEN HIS PEOPLE PURPOSE

• We’ve been set apart by God to learn and obey His Word.

• We’ve been set apart by God to reach the world with His Gospel.

• We’ve been set apart by God to enjoy the work of loving Him and loving others.

Sermon Transcript (Auto-Transcribed by Apple Podcasts)

So, we are walking right now between last Sunday, this Sunday, and Easter Sunday. We are walking through John 17, and I've entitled this study, The Lord's Prayer.

Now, those of you that maybe have grown up in, you know, various denominations of Christianity might say, I don't read a whole lot of Our Father, who art in heaven, may your name be respected as holy.

Like, I'm not reading that as I'm going through here. And there's a reason for that. This is not Jesus giving the disciples how to pray, that we would read in Matthew 6.

This is what Jesus himself prayed to the Father before he went to the Garden of Gethsemane, his trial, beating, crucifixion, and death. I want you to think about that.

What we are going to read through and be preaching through today is not the prayer of someone who has everything going well in their life. It's not the prayer of someone who's set up great financially, who is just beloved by everyone.

This is someone about to die, who knows that he's about to die, who knows he's going to be abandoned and betrayed by his closest friends that he has spent almost every day with over the last three years. And that is the context for today's prayer.

This is big. I want you to think, what would you be praying for in this moment? Jesus, in this prayer, he's focused on God's glory.

He's focused on these disciples who would abandon and betray him. And he is focused on you and I.

Did you know that in John 17, as we'll see next week on Easter Sunday, Jesus prays specifically for you, for every person that would believe in Jesus as a result of what the apostles would tell us in the Word of God.

In today's prayer, Jesus highlights two main prayers for his father that don't have to do with his pain levels. They don't have to do with Jesus having quick or easy suffering. And he's not even praying for comfort during the worst hours of his life.

Jesus' prayer today has to do with two needs that the disciples had 2,000 years ago, and that you and I have today. Today, Jesus prays for your protection and for your purpose. For your protection and for your purpose.

These two needs cover some of the most essential aspects of our life, and it speaks to two areas that we often struggle with as people today.

When you think about the perhaps mental maladies that we face, we think about depression and anxiety as things that rule so many people's minds today. Difficulties that we walk through.

And Jesus' twofold prayer of protection and purpose, it speaks directly to those needs in our life, that to the anxious, Jesus prays for your protection.

And to those who feel purposeless or feel that they do not have any community, Jesus wants you to have a purpose in life that is lived in fellowship and community with God and with His people.

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John 17 Scripture

So, let's do this. Let's read through the passage together. And if you have a copy of God's word today, I encourage you to read along as we read John 17 verses 6 through 19.

John 17 verses 6 through 19. Scripture says this, I have revealed your name to the people you gave me from the world. They were yours.

You gave them to me, and they have kept your word. Jesus here speaking about the disciples, those that Father had given to him. He says, now they know that everything you have given me is from you, because I have given them the words you gave me.

They have received them and have known for certain that I came from you. They have believed that you sent me. I pray for them.

I am not praying for the world, but for those you have given me because they are yours. God has his people. Verse number 10 says, everything I have is yours, and everything you have is mine, and I am glorified in them.

There is not a, if you will, it's not that God the Father gets everything, and God the Son gets the crumbs or the leftovers. No, in this blessed Trinity, each is giving of themselves to the other members in the Trinity.

So everything that the Father has goes to the Son, and everything the Son has goes to the Father. He says, I am no longer in the world, but they are in the world, and I am coming to you.

Jesus says, in just a moment, He is going to be killed, and He will, after He is buried, spends three days in the grave, He rises again, 40 days later, ascends to heaven.

Jesus is in heaven right now, and so He says, I'm no longer going to be in the world, but the disciples are in the world.

And then He prays this, Holy Father, protect them, keep them by Your name that You have given me, so that they may be one, as we are one.

Jesus here praying for the unity of the believers, that they would be just as united in love and purpose and community as God the Father is with God the Son.

Sadly, if many of us think about our interactions with one another or our interactions with churches through the years, we have seen many times we have failed in this way.

We have not been as unified with one another as the Father is with the Son, but this is the prayer of Jesus. He says, while I was with them, I was protecting them by your name that you have given me.

I guarded them and not one of them is lost, except the Son of Destruction so that the scripture may be fulfilled. They're obviously talking about Judas Iscariot.

He says, now I'm coming to you and I speak these things in the world so that they may have my, what's that word there? Joy, completed in them. Crucifixion, death, beating, abandonment, betrayal.

And he's concerned about his joy, living in your life and in mine. He says, I've given them your word. The world hated them because they are not of the world, just as I am not of the world.

I am not praying that you take them out of the world, but that you protect them from the evil one.

Even as I was reading through and meditating over this passage all this week, that prayer came up over and over again in my heart, is God, you know the attacks against your people that will constantly come from Satan, who wants to disrupt, who wants

to destroy. So God, would you protect us from the evil one? He says, they are not of the world, just as I am not of the world. And then he says, sanctify them, set them apart, make them different by the truth.

Your word is truth. As you sent me into the world, I also have sent them into the world. I sanctify myself for them so that they also may be sanctified by the truth.

Today, the message is, I pray for those you gave me. I pray for those you gave me. Would you pray with me?

And then we'll dive into the message for today. Dear Jesus, thank you for your limitless goodness to us. God, we pray today for every person that's here, Lord, that we would hear from your word.

Lord, thank you for your word that is ultimate truth and life, for your word that is the guide that we so desperately need in our broken world. God, we pray today that you would be with each person that is here. Lord, that you would guide us.

Lord, if there's someone here today that has never put their faith in you as their Savior and their Lord, we ask that today would be the day that they make that choice. We love you and we pray all of this in your name. Amen.

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Protection from Disunity

So today is Jesus' praise for your protection and for your purpose that then begs the question, what do we need protection from and what is our purpose? The first of these questions is, what do we need protection from?

Well, God's people need his divine protection. And the first thing that I see in here that Jesus says we need protection from is we need protection from our bent towards division and disunity.

You can read this in verse number 11 where Christ says, I am no longer in the world, but they are in the world and I'm coming to you, Holy Father, protect them, keep them by your name that you have given me, so that they may be one just as we are

one. Here, Jesus anchors the unity of Christians. Now, I want to be really clear. The unity of the church is not just your loyalty to some establishment.

It's not, yes, I love Tabernacle Baptist Church and I, you know, I bought the polo and I'm repping the church. And yeah, I'm loyal and I'm unified with the church. No, our unity as Christians means that we love and care for one another.

We forgive each other. We choose not to walk in grudging or in gossip. We choose not to live in disinterest or disharmony or separation from one another.

And instead, we operate in love towards one another. Here's where the pedal meets the metal. That means that person that you can't stand.

For some of you, it might be your spouse right now. For some of you, it might be a person that you've attended church with for the last two weeks, or for the last 50 years, that you go, this person just drives me nuts.

The Lord says his prayer is, God, I want you to unify them. So that, and again, I don't think that this is actually the case.

So that Roger and Kathy, who have been fighting each other like cats and dogs for 40 years, that they finally say, no, I'm gonna stop keeping a record of all the wrongs that you've done, and every way that you annoy me, and I'm gonna talk to everyone

else about how much my spouse annoys me, that they choose to say, no, I'm gonna love them. I'm gonna pray for them. I'm gonna do good to them. I'm not going to badmouth them to others, even when I have opportunity to.

I'm gonna choose to walk in love and in unity. Jesus says that the Trinity's unity is our model for how we love and care for one another.

As Jesus phrased it, Christian unity, a lack of division and infighting is a reflection of our belief in God, not merely our tolerance for one another. And can I tell you, indifference is not the unity here that Jesus is praying for.

It's not that God the Father spends no time with the Son or the Spirit. They love each other and they spend time together. Now, you might go, well, listen, but you don't understand.

Jim Newman is not the Holy Spirit. And so when I spend time with him, you know, maybe it's not exactly like the perfect holiness of God, the Father, Son, and Spirit. And so I can get frustrated.

Yes. But think of who's saying this. It's Jesus.

And he is praying this for 12 guys that for three years he has spent day and night with them.

That he goes, I know what Peter is like, and I know times that I've had to say, get behind me, Satan, to Peter, when he was mouthing off and saying dumb stuff.

He says, but I want there to be unity so that Peter and James and John, who sometimes fought over who would be the most important in God's kingdom, and for these ones that, you know, they run to the tomb of Jesus, the empty tomb of Jesus, as we'll

hear about next Sunday, that even as they are quarrelsome, that they would find unity and love and community together. Can I encourage you?

That is what God wants for your life, that you would experience joy and community, peace and love, forgiveness and reconciliation with those around you.

And that doesn't just go for someone that is perhaps across the aisle or across the way at our church, that goes for the fellow Christians that live within your own home.

Parents and kids, between a husband and a wife, God wants you to experience unity. Think of it this way. If there was a football team, you know, I know that I'm in Ravens country.

I know that we have some people that love various teams. Thankfully, John Cooney is not here today with his love for the Patriots. I hate the Patriots.

I'm a Broncos fan.

But if a football team was focused on in-fighting, and if a football team was focused on seeing who could get their way or who could get their greatest stat line or glory, that team would lose every single game in the NFL or in college ball because

they are not focused on fighting the battle that needs to be fought. They would be focused on fighting each other. So it is that if we in-fight as a church, then we can never experience the life or purpose that God has for us.

Disinterest and non-involvement aren't unity, but a church pursuing Jesus' mission, led by their pastors, consistently contributing ideas, prayer needs, highlighting areas of need in the church body or in our community, is a beautiful picture of a

father, son, and spirit that love both each other and the world. So Jesus says, first thing you got to watch out for, that I'm asking God the Father to protect them from, if you will, is protect them from themselves, that lust of the flesh that would

say, my way, no one else's. He says, God, we need protection. They need protection from their bent towards division and disunity.

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Protection from World

Secondly, we need protection from a world that wants to draw us from God. We can see this in verse number 14. He says, I have given them your word.

The world hated them because they are not of the world. Our world today values money, fame, and pleasure.

And when we reject hoarding wealth so that we can give it to God's work, that we can give to the poor, that we can support missionaries, our world will not like it.

The people that you interact with are going to think that you're done, that you're stupid for wasting your money on things that do not build your own bank account or that buy you more toys, they will view that as foolish.

When we reject what is popular or what is correct in today's estimation, when we reject that for what is true based on the Word of God, the world will not like it. They will not respect your decision to believe the Word of God over human opinion.

When we reject pleasure in order to obey God, whether it is leisure that is outside of the will of God, whether it is sexual habits or substance abuse, when we reject pleasure in favor of obeying God, our world will not like it.

They will constantly try to convince you that their way is better. And so we need protection, not just from ourselves and our bent towards disunity. We need protection from the world around us.

If you will, the lust of the world.

Think of the fall of the early church in the 400s and 500s AD as they married the Roman Empire, and what once was people passionately pursuing God, despite persecution, it became an empire enforcing its will onto people.

When we, if you will, when the church gets in bed with the world, it always ends poorly, every single time. Or you can think of the fall of churches today as they platform Hollywood movies or politicians instead of platforming Jesus.

The truth is today that what we need, Bryon Self and Ron Smith and every other single one of you, what we need today is not the opinions of our world. We don't need the best and the brightest that the world has to offer.

We have to come to the Word of God and say we need Jesus. And because Jesus was this one that he said, I have sanctified myself, I've set myself apart so that they would have a model that is there for them.

And he says in verse number 19, I sanctify myself for them so that they also may be sanctified by the truth. That we need to follow Jesus. Jesus is the pattern, not the world.

Can I encourage you today? Don't be swayed by a world that is barreling towards its judgment day. Don't live for money, for approval or for pleasure.

Instead, live for God. So we need protection from our bent towards division and disunity. We need protection from a world that wants to draw us from God.

And we need protection from a devil that seeks our destruction. We can read this in verse number 15. I'm not praying that you take them out of the world, but that you protect them from the evil one.

Scripture makes it very clear that, yes, we know that there is God, and He is almighty. He is all-powerful. He is all-wise.

He is all-good. But we also have an enemy of our souls. Now, He is not God's rival.

He is not God's equal. He is a created being. God is eternal.

God is all-powerful. Like, no one's messing with God. But Satan is real.

This one that God created, if you will, Satan's arch-rival is Michael the Archangel. As you look in Scripture, they're the ones that are constantly button heads and like fighting against one another. And Satan wants to destroy your life and my life.

We're told in 1st Timothy 5 that the devil walks around like a roaring lion, seeking who he can devour. We're told in Revelation 12 that he is the accuser of the brothers and sisters, the one who accuses us before our God night and day.

You see, Satan has a desire for your life, and that is that you would abandon worship of God, that you would abandon following God, and you would go your own path, so that as you walk away from God and you live in sin, that God's judgment would come

on you, just as that judgment is coming one day for Satan himself. But the promise from the Word of God is that we can experience protection and deliverance in our life from temptation or from circumstances that would tempt us to abandon God.

You can see this in the life of Job, where Satan wanted Job to turn his back on God, to curse God and die, and Job would not do it.

You can see it as Satan tempts even Jesus himself in the wilderness, and where Jesus over and over again combats Satan with the Word of God, this Word that is truth, that sets us apart, and Jesus rejects Satan's advances.

We are told in James 4, resist the devil and he will flee from you. We are told in 1 John 4, greater is he that is in you than he that is in the world.

In the minds of the biblical authors, behind your health battle, behind the words of a friend who wants you to disobey God's plan for your life, and behind even natural disasters, there is a spiritual being who despises you and wants you to

experience God's wrath as you turn your back on him due to bad circumstances. So what do we do? We pray right along with the Lord's prayer. God, do not lead us into temptation, but deliver us from evil from that moment of testing.

But when the moment of testing comes, because of God's Holy Spirit who has taken up residence inside every person that is called on faith in Jesus alone for salvation, we are able to overcome not through our might, but through the might of God

himself who has taken up residence in us, and through the power of the word of God, who can combat every arrow of the evil one. So God's people need his divine protection.

We need protection from the world, the flesh, and the devil, the lust of the flesh, the lust of the eyes, and the pride of life, from our own bent towards division and disunity, a lack of care and love for one another, from peer pressure from the

world around us, and from our spiritual opposition, and Satan and his demons. world around us, and from our spiritual opposition, and Satan and his demons.

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Purpose in Godʼs Word

But today, Jesus doesn't just pray for our divine protection. He has also prayed for our purpose, that God has given his people purpose. Go, what's my purpose?

Well, first there, we have been set apart by God to learn and to obey his word. We read this in verse 17. Sanctify them by the truth.

Your word is truth. You see, God is interested in much more than you simply becoming a community activist or a kind person. Those things are finding good in and of themselves, but God is looking for more from your life.

He is interested in a personal relationship with you, where you get to learn about the eternal God and become more like him as you spend time reading, internalizing, and obeying his word. His word makes new disciples.

His word changes those disciples to look more like him. His word equips those disciples every day to accomplish his mission in his power for his glory. Without the word of God, we don't have a reason to exist as a church.

All across our area, there are nonprofits that provide food and clothing, and we love getting to partner with them. But what sets the Church of Jesus apart isn't meals or clothes or money. You don't have to be a Christian to give any of those things.

What makes us different, what sets the Church of Jesus apart, is the message of the gospel and scripture. That is what we are uniquely called to spread to the world.

I also notice here, even as Jesus is praying, he's not saying, God, sanctify Peter through your truth, your word is truth.

There is a communal aspect that the Bible was written, not just by one author, but by over 40 authors over the course of 1,500 years of human history.

And just as the Bible was written by a group of people, not just to one individual, but to groups of people, certainly we need to recognize today that, yes, we can spend time in the Word personally, but we are also called to spend time in the Word

corporately, whether that's over a meal with a friend, or over a cup of coffee, or tea, or whatever you like. Water, if you're really boring. And so, that can happen in small situations.

It can happen in small groups, or our Sunday school classes, or as we're learning the Gospel of Job together, as we're going through the names of God on Wednesday nights with Pastor Ron, we can learn together in those settings.

Right now, you are learning together. And as you look across the room, you can see people that for the last 50, 60 years have been following the Lord and have given their lives to him.

And you can look around the room today and see people that even today are starting off their Christian journey, having professed Christ as Savior, and they're going to be baptized.

And it's so cool that as we look around today, we can go, God's Word works for the 70-year-old retired person, and God's Word works for the person that is 22 and just kind of getting started in life, and God's Word works for the widows and for those

that have gone through divorce, and God's Word works for those that have gone through the hardest things possible in life, the death of a child or the death of a spouse. And we're able to say, as we look around at one another, yes, I can be set apart

for the purpose of God because I see that God has already done that work in the people around me. God has given us purpose to learn and to obey His Word, yes, personally, but also corporately.

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Purpose in Mission

But we have been set apart by God to reach the world with His Gospel. We read in verse 18, as you sent me into the world, I also have sent them into the world.

God says, whatever the Father did in sending Jesus, Jesus is now sending His Church for this same mission or to this same place, to the same people. Yes or no, was Jesus sent to the world with a mission by God the Father? Okay, so are you.

You would think that Jesus failed His mission if He became the world's best and foremost carpenter, but did not preach or die for our sins.

You will fail in your mission likewise if you do not involve your relationship with God in your interactions with other people. You do not belong to you, you belong to God.

You are His ambassador to Bully's Quarters or to Bel Air or to Dundalk or to Back River or to Middlesex.

I want to encourage you, you have a purpose in your life, and it is that other people would get to know God because they have interacted with you. You go, well, what in the world does that look like?

Read through the Gospel of John, read through Matthew, Mark, and Luke, see the way that Jesus went through life with people.

Look at what He talked about, look at the illustrations that He gave, look at the decisions that He called people to, and find your purpose in the purpose of Jesus. Who are you inviting to be your guest even next Sunday for Easter?

This is a great, like, hey, involve people in your life, Lord willing. You will be right here again next Sunday for Easter Sunday at Tabernacle at 10 AM. Can it real quick?

Can everyone say 10 AM? OK, very important that you know that. Who are you inviting to be your guest that next Sunday?

Or who are you inviting to meals? Or who are you inviting over to your home so that they know that they have a friend, especially a Christian friend? So we've been set apart by God to learn and to obey his word.

We've been set apart by God to reach the world with his gospel, and we've been set apart by God to enjoy the work of loving him and loving others. We can see this back in verse 13.

Now I am coming to you, and I speak these things in the world so that they may have my joy completed in them. Jesus has called you to joy. He has not called you to perfect circumstances.

We read, we'll be hated by the world. There is an evil one that is coming against us. There's going to be a temptation to fight and bicker with one another.

So, there will be hardship, but there is joy to be found underlying all of it. That is the purpose of God in our lives. We can find full joy in our lives, not as we fulfill our every desire, but as we fulfill God's desires.

His desire is not for you to simply become a monk or to live in perpetual misery, but that as he constantly shows you his love and his care, you would enjoy everything that he has given you, and you would use those things to love and care for others.

I love what the Westminster Shorter Catechism says. It says, What is man's chief end? To glorify God and enjoy him forever.

Or as Pastor John Piper of Bethlehem Baptist in the Twin Cities says, God is most glorified in us when we are most satisfied in him. Can I ask you today, do you find joy in how you're serving the Lord?

Is there a deep-seated satisfaction when you are serving on a team or volunteering in some capacity? Jesus communicates to us that the word he has given us is for our complete joy.

If there's a lack of joy, it might be an indication that we're not serving in an area that God has designed for us.

Or it could be an indication that we're not serving out of love for him and others, but out of duty or what others might think about us. I want to challenge you. You were created to love and serve, not just show up and listen.

If you're not sure about where you might best fit to serve, there's some areas listed in your bulletin each week, or I have a thousand different areas of Tabernacle where you might be able to see why God has placed you here at this time with these

people. Today, as we consider this prayer of Jesus, we see that Jesus prayed for those that God had given him. And he prays for two things.

Their protection, he prays for their protection that they would be unified, that they would be safe from the world pressure around them that would want to lead them away from Jesus' path, and prayed for protection from the evil one.

And Jesus also prayed for our purpose, that we would grow to know, love, learn, and obey the word of God and share it with others, that we would share the gospel with others, and that we would find joy in all of it as we walk with him.

Can I ask you today, do you realize that this prayer that Jesus prayed, like Jesus isn't dead, he's still alive, and he is still praying this over your life and over my life today.

And as we hear the prayer of God the Son over our life, may it let us know we are not rejected, we are not abandoned, we are beloved.

Today, if you don't know the Lord is your Savior, in just a moment, we're going to have a time of invitation, and I invite you, come on up and talk with one of our elders they would love to open the Word of God, and to show you how you can know that

you have a relationship with this Jesus, the one that died on Calvary, as we'll celebrate together on Friday, who died for our sins in our place, that we who deserve judgment don't receive judgment as a result of the Son of God himself taking that

on. But though he died three days later, he rose again from the dead, triumphant o'er the grave. And he calls on everyone to believe on him as their Lord and their Savior, that trusting in what Jesus did, we can find full forgiveness and freedom

forever. I want to encourage you, if you've never made that choice, today can be the day that you do that.