John 17:11b-16 | "Keep Them In Your Name"
[John 17] He Said, "Father" • Sermon • Submitted • Presented
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· 294 viewsSunday, December 26, 2021. John 17:11b-16 | "Keep Them In Your Name" Jesus addresses God not as "Father" but as "Holy Father" as He prays for His followers. This sermon explores why Jesus added this word and what it means for His followers in the world. This message preaches from John 17:11b-16. It is part of a preaching series through John 17, "He Said, 'Father.'" The title of this sermon is "Keep Them In Your Name."
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Introduction
Introduction
If we want to know why Jesus came, we must look at what Jesus prayed.
The prayers of Jesus reveal the heart of Jesus as He obeys the will of His Father in Heaven.
This Christmas season, we began preaching through John 17 — one of the great prayers that Jesus prayed, forever preserved for us in God’s Word.
This prayer is preserved for us because God wants us to hear it — we NEED to hear what Jesus prays here!
We need to hear WHY the Father gave His only Son to the world.
We need to hear WHY the Word became flesh and dwelt among us.
Not just for the sake of knowledge, but for the sake of faith. So that we might act and pray in obedience to our Father’s will and for His glory too.
These are the Prayers of Christmas, which are the prayers of Christ.
As we prepare to hear God’s Word read and proclaimed, let us do so prayerfully, asking our Father in Heaven to strengthen our faith and guide us according to His will.
Prayer
Prayer
Father,
You have “highly exalted him and bestowed on him the name that is above every name…
Who is this “him”? What is this “name”?
Your Word tells us:
So that at the name of Jesus every knee should bow, in heaven and on earth and under the earth, and every tongue confess that Jesus Christ is Lord, to the glory of God the Father.”
May the name of Jesus be exalted as Your Word is proclaimed today. We gather in Jesus’ name.
Remove anything that hinders us from hearing, bowing our knees and confessing Jesus as Lord of all. Strengthen our faith.
Give us eyes that we might see, ears that we might hear, and hearts that we might receive, believe and obey Your Word.
In the name of Jesus we pray, for Your glory, Amen.
I. The Reading
I. The Reading
This is a reading from John 17:1-16 —
1 When 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,
2 since you have given him authority over all flesh, to give eternal life to all whom you have given him.
3 And this is eternal life, that they know you, the only true God, and Jesus Christ whom you have sent.
4 I glorified you on earth, having accomplished the work that you gave me to do.
5 And now, Father, glorify me in your own presence with the glory that I had with you before the world existed.
6 “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.
7 Now they know that everything that you have given me is from you.
8 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.
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.
10 All mine are yours, and yours are mine, and I am glorified in them.
11 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.
12 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.
13 But now I am coming to you, and these things I speak in the world, that they may have my joy fulfilled in themselves.
14 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.
15 I do not ask that you take them out of the world, but that you keep them from the evil one.
16 They are not of the world, just as I am not of the world.
This is God’s Word, if you receive it as such, would you Say Amen? AMEN!
[ Scripture Reading ~4 min ]
II. The Exhortation
II. The Exhortation
Our preaching text focuses on verses 11-16 which have just been read in our hearing.
This is a portion of prayer that pertains not to Jesus and His glory as the Son or glory as man, but to the needs of Jesus’ followers.
Jesus is praying for His disciples that He is about to leave as He goes the way of the cross and returns to His Father in Heaven.
Jesus does not leave His disciples un-prayed for.
In the preceeding verses, verses 6-11, Jesus prepares for what He is going to ask the Father on their behalf.
Jesus rehearses in prayer the works He has accomplished for them, and continues to accomplish for these who have been called by Him, who have remained with Him, and now must continue on without His presence in the flesh as they have known.
In verse 11, Jesus now makes His request. This is His prayer for His disciples.
And in making His request, He addresses His Father once again, but He addresses His Father in a way that is different from before, and it is worth our attention.
In verse 1, at the opening of this prayer, Jesus addressed His prayer to His, “Father.” He said, “Father.”
“Father, glorify your Son...” (v.1)
Again in verse 5, Jesus said in the same way —
“Father, glorify me...” (v.5)
Twice, Jesus has addressed God as His “Father.”
But here in verse 11, in the middle of this verse, as He makes His petition for His disciples, Jesus changes the way He addresses His Father.
Instead of saying “Father,” Jesus says:
“Holy Father, keep them in your name...” (v.11b)
Did you notice the difference? One word is added.
Every word of Scripture is significant and intentional. Not one word is wasted.
Jesus adds the word “Holy” and that matters.
Not “Father,” but now, “Holy Father.”
Why the change of address?
Jesus is anchoring His appeal in the character of God.
Before Jesus prays for what He asks for, He begins with the revelation of God the Father.
Jesus knows that if His prayer is to be answered, it must agree with His Father’s purpose, and that His Father’s purpose flows out of His person.
Jesus does not ask His Father to change or conform to His needs so that His prayer might be answered.
Instead, Jesus conforms His prayer — He submits His prayer, to the revelation of His Father’s character and prays in a way that agrees with who His Father is.
We do this when we ask for God to heal someone. We begin with God, and appeal to His revelation as “Healer” and the “Great Physician.”
We do this when we ask God to help us face conflict. We begin with God, and appeal to His revelation as “Deliverer” and “Protector” and “Shepherd.”
Our prayers must agree with who our Father is. Our prayers must begin with God as He has revealed Himself to us.
We must ask of our prayers —
Is this prayer consistent with the character of God?
Is this prayer reflective who who our Father is in His being?
Jesus begins with the revelation that His Father is holy:
"Holy Father.”
This is a unique combination of words that should not fit together.
In fact, I believe this is the only occurence in the New Testament where this combination occurs — where God is addressed in this way.
The word “holy” should stop us in our tracks. It represents exclusivity. Something that is unique, exclusive to God.
“His name is holy.”
For us human beings living in the world, as those who have sinned, who touch profane things, the revelation that God is “Holy” should be a bitter disappointment.
We are not holy. We cannot approach holy. We are undeserving of holy. We are excluded from “holy.”
But Jesus begins His prayer for His followers with the address: “Holy Father...”
As “Father,” God is approachable. Not based on our merit, not because we are deserving, but because we earn that right, but instead, because we belong to Him being made His children whom He loves.
From the mouth of Jesus, in this address of prayer, we have summed up for us the Gospel.
God is holy, AND God is Father.
God is unapproachable, AND God is intimately relational.
God is exclusive, AND God is invitational.
God is not one or the other — He is both!
As Jesus shifts His prayer to a prayer of intercession for His disciples, He shifts His address to His Father to remind His disciples, and to remind us, what we often forget to recognize in our own praying.
Yes — God is Father, but Yes — God is also holy.
And as God’s Word repeatedly exhorts us, we are to be holy as His people, too.
Let us not pray “Father, Father, Father....” and forget in our repetitive babble that our Father is holy.
Let us not fail to bow before Him with reverence, remembering His holiness.
Jesus taught His disciples to pray by pointing to the Gentiles and saying “don’t be like them…Pray then like this: Our Father in heaven, hallowed by your name.”
That is — “Father, may your name be treated as holy” (LEB).
That is what we are exhorted to do through this prayer: To treat God’s name as holy in view of what Jesus prays here for his followers.
III. The Teaching
III. The Teaching
This is an exclusive prayer. A holy prayer. This is not a prayer that is prayed for everyone.
After the address of verse 11, Jesus then intercedes with this request:
17.11b
17.11b
John 17:11 (ESV)
11 ...Holy Father, keep them in your name, which you have given me, that they may be one, even as we are one.
“Keep them in your name.”
That’s the prayer.
Keep them in your character.
Keep them in your holiness.
Jesus knew what it was like to live in the world. He was born into it! The Word became flesh and dwelt among us.
Jesus knew how difficult it would be, how impossible it would be, for his disciples to remain in the world and keep themselves pure, and distinct from the world without God’s help.
And so He prays that His Father would “keep them.”
Not cast them off. Not give them away. Not trade them for others. But keep them. Retain them. Cause them to continue in…His name (LN).
This prayer should give comfort and assurance to all of us who are disciples of Jesus.
The disciples of Jesus are kept in His name by the Father in answer to this prayer.
They have received and kept His word — verse 6, and the Father is keeping them — verse 11.
Salvation is not of works. God must keep us and God does keep us as we continue in His Word.
And for what purpose does Jesus pray this prayer?
Why does Jesus ask the Father to keep them in His name? This prayer is full of purpose statements.
And this is a good question for us to ask — WHY do we pray for any of the requests that we pray? For what purpose do we pray them? This text compels us to think about that.
Do we have a purpose?
Why do we pray that God would give us something? — So that we can spend it on our own passions?
Why do we pray that God would heal someone? — So that they may get sick again?
Do we think about the WH — the PURPOSE for asking what we are praying for? We should, and this text encourages us to make the purpose known in our prayers.
Jesus knew why He was praying for the Father to keep them in His name, and he says so at the end of verse 11 —
John 17:11b (ESV)
11 ...Holy Father, keep them in your name, which you have given me, that they may be one, even as we are one.
This is the purpose:
“that they may be one, even as we are one.”
This echoes the words of the great “Shema” of the Old Testament:
4 “Hear, O Israel: The Lord our God, the Lord is one.
The Lord is unique. Jesus prays that his disciples would be one as He and His Father are one. Unique in their oneness. Holy in the eyes of the world because they are distinct from it.
When the Bible speaks of the world, it speaks of that which is contrasted with heaven. The world represents that which is lost, estranged from God because of sin (LN).
The world knows division, but what stands in contrast to the world, what is holy in the eyes of the world, is unity. Oneness.
As the disciples of Jesus are united, in the same mission and the same purpose (TNTC), which is God’s mission and God’s purpose, the world takes notice of that.
Because oneness does not belong to the world. Oneness is holy. Oneness is different.
This is why, Church, we are to be united not divided. There is no allowance for division in the body of Christ, because Christ is not divided.
If there is disagreement, if there is division, then the world has infiltrated the church. The enemy has a foothold in the church. Sin is alive and well, in the church.
And the answer isn’t to seek peace or please everyone, the answer is to purge the evil person if necessary and remove the sin.
The disciples’ oneness was a reflection of the Father’s holiness.
What Jesus is asking the Father to do for them, Jesus has been doing for them.
17.12
17.12
12 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.
Jesus is giving an account of what He has been given (see F.F. Bruce, 332).
Jesus has kept and guarded those whom He has been given.
Church - we all will be held accountable for what we have done with what we have been given. This is the principle of stewardship. Of entrustment.
Jesus understood this and it informed His prayer.
“While I was with them...I kept them…I have guarded them...”
Jesus is asking His Father to continue doing what He has been doing while in the flesh.
By this we learn that
We must never ask our Father to do through prayer what we are not willing to do through our own obedience.
Our prayers must be supported by our stewardship of what has been entrusted to us.
Jesus stewarded well according to God’s revealed Word. Jesus stewarded Scripturally.
To keep is to guard. Jesus guarded all, and not one was lost (that is, not one perished) except the “son of perishing.”
Except Judas, who betrayed Jesus.
Jesus did not fail to guard Judas, a disciple, for he was “the son of destruction” in fulfillment of the Scripture.
God does not will that anyone should perish — but know that the Scriptures will be fulfilled one way or the other - to your salvation or to your condemnation.
“He who does not believe is condemned already.”
Those that keep the Word will be kept by the Word. Those that reject the Word will be rejected along with the world.
Judas gave Himself over to Satan, through the means of the world, through the love of money. He was destroyed, as the son of destruction according to the same word — just as the world will be destroyed along with all of its desires.
Notice this — Judas was kept in the word “that the Scripture might be fulfilled” but Judas was not kept in the name.
Judas was kept in the word but not in a way that saved Him.
Listen to what Jesus said to unbelieving Jews in John 8 who thought they were right with God because of their association with a godly man — Abraham.
39 They answered him, “Abraham is our father.” Jesus said to them, “If you were Abraham’s children, you would be doing the works Abraham did,
40 but now you seek to kill me, a man who has told you the truth that I heard from God. This is not what Abraham did.
41 You are doing the works your father did.” They said to him, “We were not born of sexual immorality. We have one Father—even God.”
42 Jesus said to them, “If God were your Father, you would love me, for I came from God and I am here. I came not of my own accord, but he sent me.
43 Why do you not understand what I say? It is because you cannot bear to hear my word.
44 You are of your father the devil, and your will is to do your father’s desires. He was a murderer from the beginning, and does not stand in the truth, because there is no truth in him. When he lies, he speaks out of his own character, for he is a liar and the father of lies.
Church - do not be deceived! The word will work one way or the other. Many will think that God is their Father but the devil is their father and their works prove it. They cannot bear to hear the word, they will not stand in the truth.
What do our works say about who our Father is?
Judas was destroyed in keeping with the Scriptures, but so too all who believe in Jesus will be saved by Him! Kept by the Heavenly Father and guarded from eternal destruction!
In verse 13, Jesus prays —
17.13
17.13
13 But now I am coming to you, and these things I speak in the world, that they may have my joy fulfilled in themselves.
This is the work of the Holy Spirit.
Jesus said something similar to this in another place in the context of love. Love - Joy - Peace - all of these and more are fruits of the Spirit — the Holy Spirit — not the spirit of this world but the Spirit of Christ.
Jesus wants His followers to have joy while still in this world.
And this joy is fulfilled in the Holy Spirit in obedience to His Word.
17.14
17.14
14 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.
As Leon Morris clarifies:
“The Word of the Father is not a natural possession. It is only given by Christ.”
(Morris, 729)
The Word of the Father is not natural to us. It is spiritual. And being spiritual, it is Holy, and may only be received through faith.
17 So faith comes from hearing, and hearing through the word of Christ.
This is yet another reason why Jesus came: that we may receive the Word.
And the Word makes us holy, and un-wordly, in a way that the world notices and hates.
To be holy is to be hated.
We don’t follow Jesus because it will make us popular. Quite the contrary - following Jesus will make us hated, which is why so many people don’t truly, follow Jesus.
Holiness is costly, and too many refuse to pay the price.
Being like Jesus will mean being less like the world, for Jesus says “I am not of the world.”
As Don Carson says:
“Jesus never was of it, and had to enter it.”
(Pillar, 564).
This was the meaning of Christmas.
What was not of the world, entered into the world, to bring us out of the world! To make us holy!
In verse 15, Jesus makes another, related request —
17.15
17.15
15 I do not ask that you take them out of the world, but that you keep them from the evil one.
We would think that if we were not of the world, God would take us out of the world. We long for escape.
Anytime we experience difficulty or trouble or persecution or opposition we just want God to eject us out of that situation.
Perhaps we should stop praying for escape from our problems and instead pray that God would use us to be witnesses in them!
It’s the prayer of 2 Corinthians 1:3-4 —
3 Blessed be the God and Father of our Lord Jesus Christ, the Father of mercies and God of all comfort,
4 who comforts us in all our affliction, so that we may be able to comfort those who are in any affliction, with the comfort with which we ourselves are comforted by God.
Jesus knows what we forget: God has a purpose for our trials. Not that we escape them, but that our light for Christ might shine brighter against the backdrop of an even greater darkness.
But Jesus does not pray for our escape. Jesus prays for the opposite.
Jesus prays: “I do not ask that you take them out of the world.”
This is the witness of holiness.
God desires that we live in the world as a holy people belonging to Him. In this way, we reveal God to the world as we are witness for Jesus.
Forget not that God so loved the world —
16 “For God so loved the world, that he gave his only Son, that whoever believes in him should not perish but have eternal life.
This is our mission. This is our purpose. To make known the only true God and Jesus Christ whom He has sent.
But to fulfill this mission, we must be kept in the Father’s name. We must be kept holy. We must be kept from the evil one.
19 We know that we are from God, and the whole world lies in the power of the evil one.
So Jesus prays “keep them from the evil one.”
As Don Carson says again —
Our task then, is not to withdraw from the world, or to be confused with the world, but to remain in the world as witnesses to the truth! (Pillar, 565).
We cannot be effective witnesses for Jesus if we are indistinguishable from the world.
We will not be distinguishable from the world if we give in and give over to the evil one.
15 I do not ask that you take them out of the world, but that you keep them from the evil one.
Keep them in your name.
And this leads us to —
IV. The [Christ] Conclusion
IV. The [Christ] Conclusion
This section of prayer began with a description of the Father - as Holy. It now ends with a description of the Son, of Christ — who is also holy.
17.16
17.16
16 They are not of the world, just as I am not of the world.
Jesus is not of the world.
He is not a figment of our own imagination.
He is not a being of our own creation.
Jesus is one with the Father - the Holy Father.
Jesus left His Heavenly glory, and entered into the world so that He might claim victory over the world - sin, death and the grave.
Not through force or military might. But through humility, through obedience, through sacrifice.
Jesus humbled Himself and obeyed, giving His life on the cross for the sin of the world.
Jesus was buried in the tomb within the world.
But God raised Jesus to life again, raising Him out of that tomb, out of the world, because Jesus is not of the world and did not belong there.
And the Gospel proclaims that God will do the same for us who believe - God will one day soon bring us out of this world because in Christ, we don’t belong here either!
Jesus says:
11 I am coming soon. Hold fast what you have, so that no one may seize your crown.
12 The one who conquers, I will make him a pillar in the temple of my God. Never shall he go out of it, and I will write on him the name of my God, and the name of the city of my God, the new Jerusalem, which comes down from my God out of heaven, and my own new name.
13 He who has an ear, let him hear what the Spirit says to the churches.’
Amen.
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