Calvary Road Baptist Church

“THE LORD JESUS CHRIST PRAYING FOR HIS REMAINING APOSTLES” Part 5

John 17.6-19 

Do you look around and find yourself challenged with discouragement and possibly even despair? Are you presently overwhelmed by a series of events in the news that have distracted you and left you a bit disillusioned about your country, your job situation, or the state of our culture?

Consider some of the factors that seem to prey on the minds and hearts of many Christians these days. I speak of the political coup d’état attempted by the media and government officials, nonstop, throughout the four-year term of President Trump, and the lawlessness and incompetence that seems rampant during the present administration.

The evidence seems pretty substantial that the former president’s national security advisor, Gen. Michael Flynn, along with George Papadopoulos, and Carter Page, were intentionally set up by the collaborative efforts of high-ranking members of the Obama administration, the CIA, the FBI, and the Department of Justice, to harm President Trump’s incoming administration.

Although the men I named were unjustly prosecuted using falsified evidence, real criminals such as Hillary Clinton, Huma Abedin, and Cheryl Mills, who allowed four innocent Americans to be killed by jihadis in Benghazi, and who flagrantly violated State Department security laws by using unsecured email servers to send and receive tens of thousands of emails containing classified information outside the secured government system, remain untouched to this day. You and I would have gone to jail for doing that.

How about the decision by President Trump when he was in office to remove troops from Syria? Were you aware the command structure of the Pentagon flatly disregarded his order? He ordered it, but they ignored his order. They just did not do it. We don’t hear much about that. More recently, how about the eighty-five billion dollars worth of weapons and ammunition left in Afghanistan for the Taliban to pick up? They are now flying our helicopters. Then there is the personal information of all those in Afghanistan who worked with the United States military over the past twenty years being turned over to the Taliban, so they now know who to hunt and kill.

Each violation of the Uniform Code of Military Justice or civilian federal laws that the perpetrators committed will never be prosecuted for breaking. That kind of thing is understandably disheartening to many Americans. But the Biden administration responded with a drone strike, only they killed an American aid worker and a bunch of children rather than taking out any of the Taliban.[1]

On the state level, there are so many more such grievous matters. The riots conducted for so many consecutive nights in Portland, Oregon by the Marxist Black Lives Matter operatives, the attempts to set fire to the Federal building in Portland, the takeover of an entire Police Department substation in Seattle, defunding the police department in Minneapolis, and so much more. What about the decriminalization of shoplifting in the San Francisco area resulting in so many stores closing? So long as you shoplift something costing around $950 or less, the police will not arrest you. If the police bother at all, they will only issue a misdemeanor citation. However, in the city where the homeless use the sidewalks rather than bathrooms, that is okay.

The latest is our president threatening the full weight of the federal government on those who refuse to be vaccinated, even though mandating untested vaccines is a violation of international law and treaties the United States has signed.[2] One wonders why people have to be threatened to vaccinate if the vaccine is as good as so many says it is. And I ask this as someone who has been vaccinated while being opposed to anyone being forced to vaccinate.

Does it seem to you that the fabric of our nation is beginning to unravel? Could you have imagined only two years ago that so many governors across the country would forbid Church attendance when, for the first time in human history and in violation of our nation’s First Amendment religious guarantees, a healthy population was quarantined? When has that ever happened before? And what is the legal, not to mention medical, justification for quarantining healthy people?

Do some things seem to be disorienting to you?

Has the whole world gone insane? The infamous Dr. Fauci, the guy who initially urged people not to wear masks and who sent emails to his friends telling them masks were ineffective, has been discovered to not only have lied about Coronavirus research, but he decided to direct government money to do the admittedly dangerous research in China himself after Congress chose to fund no more such research! Yet, no one seems to care.

Do you get the feeling, as so many Californians do, that many public school teachers want to be paid for not teaching and are opposed to kids being back in school? This even though school-age children are the safest age group with regard to the virus, and their long-term educational and physical well-being is threatened in a number of ways by not going to school.

Do you remember people engaging in irrational demonstrations of fear because they paid attention to the propaganda of the mainstream media? If this virus is as dangerous as people fear that it is (and I am not suggesting that it is not incredibly dangerous to certain high-risk individuals), why is there no seeming concern for the homeless in the major cities, who do not use hand sanitizers, who do not wear masks, who do not practice social distancing, who almost never bathe, and yet who are not reported as getting sick from the virus?

More than one person has observed that despite the Covid virus being in Afghanistan, the Taliban mostly refused to wear masks, refused vaccinations, and yet overwhelmed the Afghan government troops and took over without much opposition to speak of. Were they able to do that because they were immune to fear-stoking propaganda, not being given much to watching mainstream media?

Has our entire nation abandoned reasonable and rational critical thinking? Or do we allow anyone who reads a prepared script on television to frighten us out of our minds? Please do not mistake what I’m saying. I am not suggesting or insinuating that there is not reason for concern. I merely point out that there is little reason to be afraid. Londoners showed less fear during the blitz in the early days of World War Two, when they were bombed nightly by the German Luftwaffe than people these days when faced with a virus that is fatal to less than one in ten thousand people.

What I would like to suggest that you do, if you find yourself facing events or circumstances that discomfit you, is do what the writer to the Hebrews suggested that his Christian readers do: 

Hebrews 12.1-2:

1 Wherefore seeing we also are compassed about with so great a cloud of witnesses, let us lay aside every weight, and the sin which doth so easily beset us, and let us run with patience the race that is set before us,

2 Looking unto Jesus the author and finisher of our faith; who for the joy that was set before him endured the cross, despising the shame, and is set down at the right hand of the throne of God. 

Let us do just that by turning to John 17.6, so we can resume our study of the Lord Jesus Christ’s high priestly intercessory prayer: 

6 I have manifested thy name unto the men which thou gavest me out of the world: thine they were, and thou gavest them me; and they have kept thy word.

7 Now they have known that all things whatsoever thou hast given me are of thee.

8 For I have given unto them the words which thou gavest me; and they have received them, and have known surely that I came out from thee, and they have believed that thou didst send me.

9 I pray for them: I pray not for the world, but for them which thou hast given me; for they are thine.

10 And all mine are thine, and thine are mine; and I am glorified in them. 

Our text for this message from God’s Word is verse 10, where we find Christ’s comforting and enlightening assertions about God, about Him, and about His disciples, in three parts: 

ASSERTION #1 

The verse begins with the Savior asserting to the Father, “And all mine are thine.”

In His prayer to God the Father, this assertion by the Lord Jesus Christ declares that what is His is His Father’s. One is provoked to wonder, could this assertion as easily have been made by any of God’s servants? One might think Abraham, Moses, Elijah, Hezekiah, Isaiah, Jeremiah, Daniel, or any of Christ’s apostles might have made this statement without surprising or astonishing anyone. It certainly seems like a wonderful thing for a devoted servant of God to say, without distinguishing the Lord Jesus Christ from any other person so acknowledging God in his life.

Until, of course, you consider the context in which the Lord Jesus Christ uttered these words to His heavenly Father. The “mine” the Savior refers to at the beginning of verse 10 are those referred to as “them,” “them,” and “they” in verse nine. Just who are those the Savior refers to? Go back to John 17.6 and you will read, “the men which thou gavest me out of the world: thine they were, and thou gavest them me; and they have kept thy word.” That is who “they” are, the eleven men accompanying Him. In verse 7, we see them referred to: 

“Now they have known that all things whatsoever thou hast given me are of thee.” 

“All things whatsoever” would undoubtedly be understood by the Lord’s eleven men listening to Him praying as including themselves. In verse 8, the Savior indicates that He gave to “them” the words the Father gave to Him, “they” received those words, “they” understood the Lord came out from the Father, and “they” believed the Father sent Him. Those men referred to were presently being prayed for, verse 9, and were said (by the Savior whose prayers “they” overheard) to be given to Him by the Father, whose “they” are. So, you see, though one might initially suppose that Abraham, Moses, Elijah, Hezekiah, Isaiah, Jeremiah, Daniel, or any of Christ’s apostles could have accurately made this statement, such is not really the case at all, is it?

Such a short phrase. So direct. But the implications of the Savior’s assertion to the Father are staggering to contemplate. Who and what must this Person be who, when praying to God the Father, and when praying about those men, asserts such possession, such ownership of that which is, of those who are, simultaneously both the Father’s and the Son’s?

Is what is asserted at all possible without the Father and the Son being of the same nature and essence? No, it is not. This man praying and overheard by the nearby eleven men, praying to God in the presence of these eleven men, is, Himself, God, while at the same time Man! Only the God-Man could make that assertion. Let that sink in for a moment. 

ASSERTION #2 

The second of the three phrases that comprise this verse reads, “and thine are mine.”

The first phrase, if superficially or offhandedly considered, might be thought by some to be a statement that could have been made by just about any godly man other than Christ. Considered carefully, however, the initial statement is recognizable as a comment that could rightly have been made by no one other than the Lord Jesus Christ, the eternal Son of the living God. It is one thing to recognize that what is yours is also God’s. But it is another thing entirely to claim that what is God’s is also yours. That is what we have with the phrase before us, this second phrase. It is Christ’s prayerful assertion that what was the Father’s was also His.

Again, it must be pondered, Who can make this kind of claim but Jesus Christ, the eternal Son of the living God? The great Reformer, Martin Luther, said about this claim, “This no creature can say in reference to God.”[3] This is an absolute claim of deity! Nestled, as this comment is, in Christ’s prayer on behalf of His apostles, this was very comforting to the distressed men listening to Him praying for them, and it can also comfort you and me. Our Lord has already acknowledged His possession of those disciples, who were given to Him by God the Father. This phrase is a restatement of the truth that those apostles belonged to Jesus Christ as much as they belonged to the Father. What we have here is dual possession and ownership of those men, and, we shall see, also of those of us who are believers in Jesus Christ.

Matthew Poole wrote, 

“In the Greek the adjectives are of the neuter gender, so as the sense is not, All my friends, or all my disciples, are thine also; but, All my things are thine, and all thy things are mine; which is no more than he hath before often said. Christ and his father have all things common, neither of them have any thing that is not the other’s: they are one, and they agree in one; they have the same essence, the same will, the same attributes, the same friends.”[4] 

With all of this being true, what was there for those men to fear? To be sure, they were disturbed by the news their Lord has told them that He will soon leave them. He also informed them that they cannot follow Him. He will soon be arrested, beaten, illegally and unjustly tried, wrongly condemned, and crucified as a common criminal. Yet, despite the adverse circumstances which will beset them and Him, there is nothing for them to fear in light of their Lord’s sovereignty, power, and faithfulness to His Word. They are in good hands because they are in His hands. Despite how they might feel, that is reality.

Is not the same true of you and me, Christian? We have all of these things coming down around us, and yet do we not trust the same Savior those apostles trusted? Should we not receive the same comfort He gave to those men on that night so long ago? Everything that is Christ’s is also the Father’s. And everything that is the Father’s is also Christ’s. Does that not include you? Does that not include me? Will He not look after His own? And will He not look after those who belong to His Father? Remember what He said about them in John 10.28-29: 

28 And I give unto them eternal life; and they shall never perish, neither shall any man pluck them out of my hand.

29 My Father, which gave them me, is greater than all; and no man is able to pluck them out of my Father’s hand. 

ASSERTION #3 

With His final assertion of the verse, the Savior declares, “and I am glorified in them.”

The great Baptist Greek scholar, A. T. Robertson, wrote about this phrase, 

“‘I stand glorified (perfect passive indicative of doxazô) in the disciples’ (en autois), in spite of all their shortcomings and failings. There is comfort for us in this.”[5] 

He who knows the end from the beginning is settled in the knowledge that His goal was to glorify the Father, and to be glorified by His own. Though the Lord Jesus Christ was, at that moment, in the process of glorifying His Father, He looked upon the process all as already being done because nothing would interfere with His glorifying of the Father being actually accomplished. That should comfort you and me no matter what happens to us or around us, those of us who are Christ’s through repentance and faith. Those eleven men, because of their relationship with Christ, because of their faithfulness to Christ, were said by Christ to be glorifying Him. That was His pronouncement to His Father. Thus, no matter how they might have presently felt, the Savior was being glorified in them. You will see, my Christian friend, that we will soon see explicitly stated the same of you. If you know Christ and show your relationship by your faithfulness to Him, you are glorifying Him, thereby fulfilling your purpose for existing. What exhilarating news! 

Let me conclude this message from God’s Word with a lesson that might, at first, seem to be unrelated to the text of this message. Bear with me for a moment, and it will end up making sense, I promise.

I have repeatedly mentioned to you in sermons a book written by the late W. Graham Scroggie titled, The Unfolding Drama Of Redemption: The Bible As A Whole.[6] It is a delightful Bible commentary that examines the entire Bible, explaining it like the grand drama that it is. Essential to any drama is what is called the protagonist, from a Greek word protos, meaning first, and agonistes, meaning actor. Webster defines it, “Protagonist, in the drama, the leading character or actor in a play, novel, or story, about whom the action centers; hence, a person who plays a leading or active part.”[7]

Please recognize that the whole point of God’s Word is to so describe this great redemption drama as featuring the Lord Jesus Christ as the central figure, centering the audience’s attention, those who read the Bible, study the Bible, and preach the Bible, on Him. The conflicting distraction in this drama, sin, deadens the soul and spirit with blindness, selfishness, and horrible contamination leading to eternal damnation. But Scripture shows how the Lord Jesus Christ provides deliverance, salvation, and redemption through the Gospel.

However, even after conversion to Christ occurs, the purpose and theme of the drama remains the same, to keep focusing the audience’s attention on the protagonist, the character about whom the action centers, to continually encourage us to fix our gaze upon the Savior no matter what happens to distract us.

Back to our text. Those eleven men had been abandoned by one of their number, Judas Iscariot, who was carried off by greed and lust to betray the Savior for thirty pieces of silver. Judas Iscariot was wrapped up in Judas Iscariot, was he not? He wrongly imagined the drama to be all about him, like lost people necessarily do. And, with his attention wrongly focused on himself, of course, he succumbed to the Devil’s temptations.

The faithful eleven remained true because of their vital relationship with Jesus Christ. He is the true vine and they were fruit-bearing branches. But the oversight of the Good Shepherd continues in His flock’s lives, does it not? We see it in this prayer and especially in the verse we have just examined.

Like you and me sometimes, those men felt like they were under siege. And it would get worse before it got any better. Their Lord’s crucifixion and their three days of crushing despondency before He rose from the dead were ahead of them. But before the utter darkness was come upon them, He prayed. And He prayed for them.

John 17.10, where the Lord’s words to His Father were “And all mine are thine, and thine are mine; and I am glorified in them,” was part of the Savior’s design to refocus their attention, and to draw their gaze from themselves to Him, by reaffirming eternal truths. He is the key. He is at the center of it all. He is most important, and not any of them.

Regardless of how you may feel when you are discouraged, you are not the protagonist in this drama. It is not all about you. It isn’t even very much about you ... or me. It is hugely, muchly, bigly, overwhelmingly, about Him. So long as you keep that in your mind and heart, my Christian friend, you will be okay.

__________

[1] https://youtu.be/ZtecNyXxb9A

[2] https://youtu.be/hUJYWEpIwJg

[3] A. T. Robertson, Word Pictures In The New Testament, Vol V, (Grand Rapids, MI: Baker Book House, 1932), page 277.

[4] Matthew Poole, A Commentary On The Whole Bible, Volume 3, (Peabody, MA: Hendrickson Publishers), page 368.

[5] Robertson, page 277.

[6] W. Graham Scroggie, The Unfolding Drama Of Redemption: The Bible As A Whole, (Grand Rapids, Michigan: Zondervan Publishing House, 1970).

[7] Webster’s New Universal Unabridged Dictionary, (New York: Barnes & Noble Books, 1996), page 1446.

Would you like to contact Dr. Waldrip about this sermon? Please contact him by clicking on the link below. Please do not change the subject within your email message. Thank you.

Pastor@CalvaryRoadBaptist.Church