Well, good morning and welcome to our latest discussion in John chapter 17. Jesus prays for us all. Remember when you were a child and you dropped a stone into a calm pond? That fascination as you watched the ripples spread out from that central point, right to the edge of the pond or the puddle.

Well, Jesus’ prayer here in John 17 is structured a bit like that. It’s a series of three concentric circles or ripples, if you like. Firstly, in the centre, Jesus prays for himself.

We’ve noticed that in verses one to five. Then, as the ripple expands in the second circle, he prays for his immediate disciples. And we notice that in verses six to 19.

But by the time we get to the end of the chapter, by the time we get to verse 20 through to verse 26, we’re starting to see the outer ripples of that prayer that started in verse one. In these verses, our text for this morning, Jesus deliberately widens the circle. I do not ask for these only, he says, but also for those who will believe in me through their word.

(1:35 – 2:21)

Now, if you stop to really think about that, that is quite a staggering prayer. That prayer encompasses and includes every Christian believer who has ever lived since Pentecost. It includes every single member of the church scattered across 2,000 years of church history in every country of the world, in every part of the globe.

But it also includes, remarkably enough, you and I this morning. It includes us here in Greenview. The ripples are going really wide.

(2:23 – 5:34)

Now, if you agree that it’s a remarkable thing that Jesus prays for us all, what I want to suggest to you is what he prays for us is even more remarkable. Because he doesn’t pray for the kind of things that we often pray for each other. He doesn’t pray for ease.

He doesn’t pray for an easy life. He doesn’t pray for safety, even. He doesn’t pray for cultural dominance.

In other words, he doesn’t pray that Christianity might be the big power in the world. He doesn’t pray for political sympathy, that the powers that be might look kindly on Christian believers. None of these things are unimportant.

None of these things should not be prayed for. But these aren’t the things Jesus prays for. He prays for three things.

And we want to unpack these three things this morning. He prays for unity. He prays for glory.

And he prays for love. Which, when combined by the power of his spirit, will create a witness so compelling that the world will be forced to reckon with and be transformed by the truth of the gospel. So this passage confronts us with the searching question, what kind of church did Jesus pray into existence? So we’re going to look at these three words, unity, glory, and love.

We’ll spend more time on the first one and a little less time on the last two. So let’s think firstly about unity. And we discover that theme in verses 20 to 23.

Jesus’ first great burden for future believers is unity. I pray that they all may be one, in verse 21, just as you, Father, are in me, and I in you, that they also may be in us. Now, did you follow all that? Let’s think about the what.

Let’s think about the what of this unity. What is this unity? Because at first glance, it looks a bit tame. Christians talk about unity all the time, ways of working together, breaking down barriers that divide us, finding common ground.

But Jesus’ definition of unity is far deeper and far more demanding than our view of denominations working together or superficial harmony. Notice the grounding of the unity. Just as you, Father, are in me, and I am in you.

The Godhead is the basis of this unity. Jesus isn’t praying for the creation of some kind of artificial unity by consensus. And he’s certainly not praying for unity by compromise.

(5:36 – 12:47)

He’s also not praying for unity by sharing preferences or personalities. The unity he prays for here flows out of the actual reality of his people’s participation in the very life of God itself. This isn’t a unity that we create.

This is a unity that already exists, you see. And we experience the benefit of that, and we are caught up in the good of that. You cannot separate the person of the Godhead from the unity of the church.

It’s a bit like fire and heat. You feel the heat because of the fire. The fire cannot help but produce heat.

It is of its essence. It is what fire does. The Godhead, in essence, is united.

It, he, they cannot help but produce unity. It is who they are. It is what they do.

It is what they’ve always been, and what they always will be. And we are caught up in the Godhead, do you see? Notice that’s the purpose of the language he uses. It’s deliberately relational.

In me, do you notice? In you, in us. Now, clearly, Jesus isn’t saying by describing his people as being in him and in the Godhead that we become mini gods, that we become divine. He’s saying that we are drawn into the shared life of the Father and the Son because we’ve been united with God himself through the person of Jesus.

We’ll see that a little later. God’s people are one because they are already united to the Father through the Son by the work of the Spirit. So this unity isn’t something we create.

It’s something God has already created, and we, by his grace, are caught up in the wonder of what he has done. That’s a classic John thing to say. To be a Christian is not merely to agree with certain truths, but to be united to a person.

And if we’re united to the same Christ as individuals, then we are de facto related to one another. We’re like spokes on a wheel. If you think of the Lord Jesus being at the hub of that wheel, the closer we are to him in relationship, the closer we become to one another, do you see? So that’s the what of Christian unity.

Who is Jesus praying for here? Well, he’s obviously praying for the unity of the future universal church. As Jesus prays in his mind’s eye, he’s reaching right across the centuries, and he’s seeing in his mind as he’s praying that multitude that John saw in Revelation chapter 7, that no man can number, standing before the throne. He’s seeing the complete people of God from all generations, from all time, united around the throne.

But in the prayer, you’ll notice how Jesus describes that multitude. Because in the context of verse 20, if you look down at verse 20 with me, you’ll see Jesus describes that multitude in his prayer as belonging to two groups. Do you see them? Them and those.

We’re told in our culture these days that pronouns matter. Well, these pronouns matter more than any that you may or may not choose to put at the end of your email signature. These pronouns are crucial.

Them, who Jesus is praying for, my prayer is not for them alone. Them refers to the apostles, the ones he’s already been praying for in the previous section, the disciples. I’m praying for them.

But it’s not for them alone. I’m also praying for those future believers who will believe in me through their word. And my prayer is that all of them may be one.

That we, those who might believe in the Lord Jesus through the apostles’ word, may be united with the apostles who gave us the word in the first place. And how are we united with them? How are we united with them? Well, Jesus tells us at the end of verse 20. My prayer is not for them alone.

I pray also for those who will believe in me through their message. It is by believing in Jesus through their message that we become one with the apostles and all other believers in history. So the bridge between the apostles and the rest of the church that would come later is a message, the word of truth, the gospel, through which they have believed and through which we believe.

That’s the basis of unity within the people of God, you see. The centrality of the word of God given by the apostles once and for all in history is central. And that’s shot through this prayer.

Look at verse 8. Look back to verse 8. Jesus says, I gave them the words you gave me. You see that emphasis on the word being given to the apostles by Jesus. I gave them the words you gave me and they accepted them.

So there’s the first link in that great chain. The word is given by the father to the son. He gives it to the apostles.

Then in verse 14, that word is given by the son to the apostles. Do you notice that in verse 14? I have given them your word and the world has hated them. From the father to the son, from the son to the apostles.

And then in verse 20, it’s given from the apostles to us. We come to believe in Jesus through their message, not through some message that’s been made up over the last 2,000 years, but the same message once delivered to the apostles that unites us with them. And that’s the unity that Jesus is speaking about here.

(12:47 – 15:12)

And it’s his word that is the unifying factor. Unity in the truth of the gospel is what gives us true unity in Jesus Christ. Unity in gospel truth is the essence of gospel unity.

It’s something that flows from God himself, like the heat flows from the fire. Something he has created into which we are brought. It’s not something that we create artificially by blurring all kinds of edges to find the lowest common denominator.

Back in the 1800s, Bishop Ryle, the Bishop of Liverpool, describes that unity that Jesus prays for as being marked by three things. All wills bowed in the same direction, all aims directed to the same end, and all affections burning with the same flame. And that means that Christian unity isn’t some kind of sentimental, fluffy marshmallows and pink pillows feeling.

It’s costly. It requires humility, repentance, forgiveness, patience, and truth-speaking love. Because Jesus isn’t praying here for the absence of disagreement.

He’s praying for a deeper allegiance that transcends difference. A unity that can withstand tension because it’s anchored in something deeper than shared preferences or traditions or backgrounds. It’s based on the truth of the gospel.

And you may have experienced that unity yourself if you’ve been on holiday somewhere or been away in a different part of the world and you’ve managed to find a little congregation of Christian believers like I managed to find in Reykjavik. It wasn’t easy to find them by the way. Iceland’s a difficult country for the gospel.

But I found a wee congregation in Reykjavik when I was there for a conference and I felt I’d been there all my life. You know that feeling. So why is unity important? Why are we united? Well look at verse 21.

(15:17 – 16:53)

I pray that all of them may be one. Father, just as you are in me and I am in you, may they also be in us, here we are, so that the world may believe you have sent me. So the world may believe you have sent me.

Because the credibility of the Christian message is tied in a mysterious but real way to visible gospel unity within the Christian community. Now this doesn’t mean that the church must be perfect before the world can believe. But it means that persistent division, bitterness, and factionalism distort the gospel that we claim to proclaim.

And you can see the effect of gospel disunity within church structures in our own nation. As denominations and congregations which once held fast to the truth of the gospel have begun to allow liberalism and relativism and secularism to dominate the agenda, rather than the truth of the gospel. And slowly what ends up happening isn’t that more people are attracted to the church and the gospel, but actually it becomes ineffective.

It loses its power. Because the world doesn’t need a flawless church. It needs one that is clear on what the gospel is and one that offers a radical alternative to the lifestyle that people are living in the world.

(16:55 – 19:55)

People will never be attracted to try church by why don’t you add church into your weekly activity routine. That’s just another burden for people to add to their social whirl. That’s not how the gospel spreads.

It spreads when we offer a radical alternative to the failed dreams that we’ve promised and offered for decades and centuries that our generation, my generation, have passed on to Gen Z and have left them disillusioned thinking is this all there is? Is this the utopia you promised us? A radical alternative based on gospel truth. That is what will change the world. So unity.

Second word, glory. We discover that in verses 22 to 24. The glory says Jesus you have given me, I have given to them that they may be one even as we are one.

Now that’s a startling claim. What does it mean for Jesus to give his glory to his people? Well to understand that we need to understand what Jesus is talking about here when he’s talking about glory. What is glory? Well there’s a sermon topic all on its own and we’re only in point two of a part of a sermon.

Let me try to unpack this. Glory must be seen firstly as revelation, as a present revelation. See in John’s gospel glory isn’t first and foremost about brightness and splendour and shining light.

It’s not primarily about that because we’ve seen this kind of language before in John. Back in chapter 1 verse 14 John tells us the word became flesh and made his dwelling among us. Listen.

We have seen his glory, the glory of the one and only son who came from the father full of grace and truth. And further down chapter 1 John tells us more. No one has ever seen God but the one and only son who is himself God and is in closest relationship with the father has made him known.

So there is something about revelation that is linked closely to seeing the glory of God. The glory of the one and only son is the revelation that John speaks about right through his gospel. That’s what he’s doing.

He’s unveiling who Jesus is. He tells us that right at the end doesn’t he? We’ve quoted this verse numerous times through the series right at the end of the gospel. These things I am writing to you that you may believe that Jesus is the Messiah the son of God and that by believing you may have life in his name.

(19:55 – 20:25)

I’m trying to show you to unveil to you the fullness of the glory of who this person is. And the greatest unveiling of Jesus glory takes place where? It takes place at the cross. It doesn’t look glorious to us but these things are written that you may believe Jesus is the Messiah the son of God and that by believing you may have life in his name.

(20:27 – 23:33)

That moment on the cross when Jesus’ obedience, love and faithfulness to the father are displayed, unveiled most fully and we see him for who he really is. So to share in Christ’s glory then is to share in his life and to share in his life in this life. His relationship with the father, his obedience and his mission.

But that experience that we have is imperfect. We’ve received the life of God in Jesus but we haven’t received it fully yet. It’s here but it’s not here yet in all of its fullness.

So as well as a present element of revelation of Jesus’ glory in the prayer, there’s a future element too and that’s why verse 24 is so significant. Father says Jesus, I desire that they also whom you have given me may be with me where I am to see my glory. You see if glory equals the revelation of who Jesus really is in all the amazing splendour of his person, if glory is the unveiling of the person of Jesus, when will that take place in all of its fullness? Well John wrote another book didn’t he in the New Testament.

It actually has the name that gives us the clue. Revelation which simply means unveiling and we’re going to see the amazing splendour of the person of Jesus unveiled in the future. At the moment in the words of 1 Corinthians 13 12 as it’s written by the Amplified Bible, we see as though we are looking in a mirror that only gives a dim blurred reflection of reality.

That’s how we see his glory now. A dim blurred reflection of reality but Jesus wants his people, us, you, me to be with him to see who he is fully and to be totally and completely transformed by that vision. Friends that is what heaven is about and in days of bereavement let me say this kindly.

It is a great sense of joy and peace for those who know and love the Lord Jesus to know that their loved ones are at rest with him and are seeing his glory now but our great hope isn’t that we will see them again. That’s not our great hope. Our great hope is that they with us will all see the glory of Jesus.

(23:35 – 23:46)

That is our great hope. Matt Redmond puts it very well in his modern version of the song When We All Get to Heaven. Let me read just a couple of verses from that.

(23:47 – 24:05)

One day we will see face to face Jesus. Is there a greater vision of grace? And in that moment we shall be changed on that day. And one day we’ll be free, free indeed Jesus.

(24:05 – 24:49)

One day every struggle will cease and we will see your glory revealed on that day. When we all get to heaven what a day of rejoicing that will be. Why? When we all see Jesus he’s the focus not our loved ones.

It’s great that they’re there but we’re not there to see them. When we all see Jesus we will sing and shout the victory. That’s what it’s all about folks.

(24:51 – 25:17)

This is why this matters. This is our Christian hope and it’s not a form of escapism. It reorientates and reshapes how we live now when we have that future hope.

When we know where history is going, when we know that our future is to be with Christ and to see his glory, that knowledge reshapes how we live now. It affects every aspect of our lives. Suffering becomes bearable because it’s not forever.

(25:19 – 26:09)

Worldly wealth and status become less important because they have no currency in the presence of the glory of Jesus. Perseverance and faithfulness to that which we have seen of Jesus becomes the thing that’s finally rewarded. And notice how that future hope reinforces unity in the present.

Because those who are headed towards the same glorious future must learn to love one another now on the journey. And that’s our last word, love, verses 25 to 26. That takes us to the great conclusion of Jesus’ prayer.

It’s where it ends. Here’s the great so what of Christian gospel shared unity. What’s it all about? It’s the theme of love.

(26:09 – 29:15)

It’s right there in verses 25 to 26. O Righteous father, even though the world doesn’t know you, I know you and these that you have sent me, I have 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. Because you cannot claim to have the Lord Jesus living in you and not love his people.

And the great dividing line across all humanity in John’s gospel is summarised in these verses. Those who do not know God, he describes them there in verse 25, the world, it doesn’t know you. And those who do know God and have experienced his love through his son.

So let me ask you this morning, which category best describes you here this morning? Do you know him? Do you love him? Or do you not know him and belong to the world? That’s the litmus test of our lives. It’s the defining feature of our life that the things we love define us. And you’ll see there’s an eternal dimension to this.

Verse 24, Jesus has spoken of his father’s love for him before the creation of the world. And now he describes that love as the love with which you have loved me. This is staggering, friends.

We are caught up in something that is unimaginably massive. The love that has eternally existed between the father and the son is now shared with redeemed sinners like you and me. It’s not diluted.

It’s not diminished. It’s not God’s love, V 2.0. It’s the real thing. And it’s spread into our hearts through our union with Jesus Christ.

And it’s all consuming. It’s the constant motivation of everything the Godhead does for God so loved. God is love.

And that same love the persons of the Godhead share for each other is to consume us. That same love is to be present in his people. May that love be in them, prays Jesus.

And we are recipients this morning of that love. The degree to which we experience that love is an answer to this prayer of Jesus. You’re part of the answer to this prayer.

So it’s an eternal love. But finally, it’s an external love. Because that love isn’t merely meant to comfort us and give us a sense of security.

(29:16 – 30:55)

It does that gloriously, of course. But it’s not intended to be kept to ourselves. Jesus tells us that in verse 23.

There’s a purpose to that love experience. So that the world will know you have sent me. This love is to overflow from us to the world.

When the unity, the glory, that revelation and love of God truly dwells in God’s people. It becomes visible. It becomes tangible.

It becomes compelling. It becomes that truly alternative lifestyle. Completely different to anything that the world is offering.

The glory of the Christian gospel is in its difference from the world’s offering. Not the degree to which it’s just a little bit the same. The glory is in its difference.

The world comes to believe through a community of people who are radically shaped by this message. In unity, in holiness, in love. Individually, yes.

In our homes, challengingly, yes. And corporately in our churches, as we reach out to a broken world. So John 17 20 to 26 isn’t simply a record of what Jesus once prayed in the past.

But here’s a thought to finish with. It’s a revelation of what he continues to do now. What is Jesus doing now? Well, he’s still praying.

(30:57 – 32:11)

He’s our great high priest and he’s praying for us. And the prayer that Jesus prayed for us then is the same prayer that he’s praying for us now. It’s the same prayer he’s praying for us right now at this moment.

He’s still praying that you and I might be a united people rooted in gospel truth. He’s still praying that we might be a hopeful people shaped by future glory. He’s still praying that we will be a loved and loving people reaching out to a broken world so that they will come to believe in him through us.

So let me ask you with Try Church on the horizon, to whom and how will you reach out in this kind of love this week? May God by his Spirit make us such individuals and therefore such a church for the glory of Christ and the extension of his eternal kingdom. Amen.

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