John 17:16-
The Gospel of John • Sermon • Submitted
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vv 17-19) Request for sanctification
vv 17-19) Request for sanctification
[17] What does sanctify mean? and what is an example?
Sanctify means to be set apart for God’s special pleasure and use. It implies holiness, being set apart from the corruption of the world and for God’s use.
The greek word “hagios” means to set-apart-and-devote- to-God: Whether it be things, or sacrificial animals, or men for His service.
My favorite part of this verse is that Jesus didn’t leave the disciples to sanctify themselves. He prayed for their sanctification. This process, as the keeping process, is not left to us alone; it is a work of God in us and through us.
The Word of God has a sanctifying effect on believers. As we read it, study it, and obey it, we are set apart as vessels suitable for the Master’s use.
Jesus wants people who are set apart to God from the world, useable by God.
“The more truth you believe, the more sanctified you will be. The operation of the truth upon the mind is to separate a man from the world unto the service of God.” - Spurgeon
[18] The Father sent Jesus into the world to reveal the character of God to men. As the Lord prayed, He realized that He would soon be going back to heaven. Future generations would still need some witness concerning God.
This work must be done by believers, through the power of the Holy Spirit.
Think of how Jesus came, and connect it to the way that He sends us into the world:
Jesus didn’t come as a philosopher like Plato, though He knew higher philosophy than them all.
Jesus didn’t come as an inventor or a discoverer, though He could have invented new things and discovered new lands.
Jesus didn’t come as a conqueror; though He was mightier than all.
He came to teach.
He came to live among us.
He came to suffer for truth and righteousness.
He came to rescue men!
Remember in;
9 I am praying for them. I am not praying for the world but for those whom you have given me, for they are yours.
Jesus doesn’t pray for the world specifically, yet his prayer for the disciples involves hope for the world.
[19]We cannot think that Jesus was unsanctified up to this point. He is talking about the cross, and finishing the work that the Father sent Him to complete. It was through that finished work that the word of God and work of God would become fully effective in the lives of the disciples.
v 20) Jesus broadens the scope of His prayer
v 20) Jesus broadens the scope of His prayer
How beautiful the prayer of our Savior to include us in His prayer to the Father.
Jesus prayed for His eleven disciples, but He also had the heart and the vision to pray beyond them.
This should should stir in us rest. Rest in Him, with the rest of loving obedience and of the surest confidence.
while reading this verse you can say, “Jesus prayed for me over 1900 years ago.”
Jesus knew that the disciples’ soon failure would be only temporary. People would soon hear testimonies from the disciples and come to believe in Jesus Christ for the forgiveness of their sins.
This brings a good point up pertaining to sharing our faith with others; that later Paul would later say:
14 How then will they call on him in whom they have not believed? And how are they to believe in him of whom they have never heard? And how are they to hear without someone preaching?
We heard the gospel and believed. Other need to know:
15 but in your hearts honor Christ the Lord as holy, always being prepared to make a defense to anyone who asks you for a reason for the hope that is in you; yet do it with gentleness and respect,
v 21) Prays for unity
v 21) Prays for unity
Why is unity so important?
Jesus envisioned the great multitude before the throne of God of every nation, race, language, class, and social level:
9 After this I looked, and behold, a great multitude that no one could number, from every nation, from all tribes and peoples and languages, standing before the throne and before the Lamb, clothed in white robes, with palm branches in their hands, 10 and crying out with a loud voice, “Salvation belongs to our God who sits on the throne, and to the Lamb!”
Jesus prayed that they might rise above their differences and understand their unity.
What Jesus is is praying about here is that the believers to come would be exhibiting the character of God and of Christ.
What divides us?
“Why are we not one? Sin is the great dividing element. The perfectly holy would be perfectly united. The more saintly men are, the more they love their Lord and one another; and thus they come into closer union with each other.”
What is the goal for unity?
We are to continue the charge that was given to Israel:
6 he says:
“It is too light a thing that you should be my servant
to raise up the tribes of Jacob
and to bring back the preserved of Israel;
I will make you as a light for the nations,
that my salvation may reach to the end of the earth.”
Our charge as believers is to be those lights to the world. Remember we are to be in the world not of the world. Like the ship analogy: Belongs in the ocean, not the ocean in the ship.
When we are unified together for the glory of Christ, it makes the world say, ‘I see Christ in those Christians as the Father was seen in Christ.”
The repetition and extension of this prayer to all future believers is important. it shows that unity among the broader body of Christ was and is very important to Jesus.
“beloved, those in whom Christ lives are not uniform, but one. Uniformity may be found in death, but this unity is life. Those who are quite uniform may yet have no love to each other, while those who differ widely may still be true and intensely one. Our children are not uniform, but they make one family.” -Spurgeon
How are we to be unified?
Jesus didn’t pray for uniformity or institutional unity for believers, but for unity rooted in love and shared nature, bring together the many different parts of Jesus’ one body.
This isn’t a legislated uniformity seeking to unite believers and unbelievers or wheat and tares, nor is it the unity of institutions.
3 eager to maintain the unity of the Spirit in the bond of peace.
This is what Jesus had in mind, unity of the Spirit.
Here is an important point i’d like to make about unity. We must believe that this prayer was answered, and that the church is one. Our failure is in failing to recognize and walk in that divine fact.
v 22) Prays that the church would be marked by glory
v 22) Prays that the church would be marked by glory
What is glory?
glory: The created brightness that surrounds God’s revelation of himself. In another sense of the term, it refers to God’s honor. (13E.20)
As God the Father shared His glory with God the Son:
5 And now, Father, glorify me in your own presence with the glory that I had with you before the world existed.
So Jesus gave glory unto His people.
In what ways does Jesus give us glory?
The glory of His presence
The glory of His Word
The glory of His Spirit
The glory of His power
The glory of His leadership
The glory of His preservation
Paul also understood that Jesus give His glory to His people:
6 For God, who said, “Let light shine out of darkness,” has shone in our hearts to give the light of the knowledge of the glory of God in the face of Jesus Christ.
In all these aspects, there is the essential aspect of the presence of Jesus, God the Son. Scripturally speaking, when God gives or displays His glory to His people, it is some type of manifestation of God’s presence. God’s glory is, in some way, the radiance or shining of His presence, His essential nature.
It is very important to remember that the glory that God the Father gave to God the Son was glory that often appeared humble, weak, and suffering.
It was glory that was ultimately displayed in radical sacrifice. The glory of Jesus is almost the opposite of the self-glory and vain glory of man.
The glory of Jesus was ultimately displayed in His work on the cross. John 7:39, 12:16, 12:23
The presence of glory- among the Persons of the Godhead and the member of Jesus’ church- this glory contributes to the oneness and unity of God’s people.
Where there is a sense of God’s glory, unity is so much easier. Lesser things that often divide us are set far in the background when there is a sense of God’s glory at work.
v 23) Unity in love
v 23) Unity in love
v 24) “See my glory”
v 24) “See my glory”
vv 25-26) The conclusion
vv 25-26) The conclusion