Calvary Road Baptist Church
“The Lord Jesus Christ Praying For His Remaining Apostles” Part 13
John 17.6-19
Let us begin by reading John 17.1-18:
1 These words spake Jesus, and lifted up his eyes to heaven, and said, Father, the hour is come; glorify thy Son, that thy Son also may glorify thee:
2 As thou hast given him power over all flesh, that he should give eternal life to as many as thou hast given him.
3 And this is life eternal, that they might know thee the only true God, and Jesus Christ, whom thou hast sent.
4 I have glorified thee on the earth: I have finished the work which thou gavest me to do.
5 And now, O Father, glorify thou me with thine own self with the glory which I had with thee before the world was.
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.
11 And now I am no more in the world, but these are in the world, and I come to thee. Holy Father, keep through thine own name those whom thou hast given me, that they may be one, as we are.
12 While I was with them in the world, I kept them in thy name: those that thou gavest me I have kept, and none of them is lost, but the son of perdition; that the scripture might be fulfilled.
13 And now come I to thee; and these things I speak in the world, that they might have my joy fulfilled in themselves.
14 I have given them thy word; and the world hath hated them, because they are not of the world, even as I am not of the world.
15 I pray not that thou shouldest take them out of the world, but that thou shouldest keep them from the evil.
16 They are not of the world, even as I am not of the world.
17 Sanctify them through thy truth: thy word is truth.
18 As thou hast sent me into the world, even so have I also sent them into the world.
The first five verses of our Lord’s high priestly intercessory prayer record the Savior’s prayer to His heavenly Father about Himself. Verses 6-19 record the Son of God’s requests on behalf of the remaining apostles who accompanied Him that evening and overheard His pleas. Beginning with verse 20, our Lord’s prayer turned to His request for subsequent disciples, believers who would later come to faith in Jesus Christ.
You will remember from verse 15 that the Lord urged His Father not to take His followers out of this world but to preserve them from “the evil.” As the first request is for their preservation in the world, the second request is for their sanctification in the world. This is found in verse 17.
In the verse before us, verse 18, we learn why the Son of God prayed for their preservation and sanctification. Why did the Lord Jesus Christ not want His heavenly Father to take those men, His men, out of the world? Why did the Lord Jesus Christ want His heavenly Father to preserve them from “the evil?” And why did the Lord Jesus Christ want the Father to sanctify them through the truth, which involved their immersion in the truth, which is the Word of God?
It is all about glorifying God, is it not? Isn’t everything about glorifying God? Is not God’s creation of all things for Him being glorified? Recall Revelation 4.11, where the four and twenty elders in heaven before the throne, as a heavenly choir, says,
“Thou art worthy, O Lord, to receive glory and honour and power: for thou hast created all things, and for thy pleasure they are and were created.”
The elders in heaven seem to reflect the conviction that God’s creation is all about His glory. Do they not?
Was not the dispatch of His Son from heaven’s glory to this earth via the Virgin Birth and the Incarnation to glorify the Father? The Lord Jesus Christ prayed, only moments before in John 17.4,
“I have glorified thee on the earth: I have finished the work which thou gavest me to do.”
Was not the Church of Jesus Christ brought into existence to glorify God? Paul wrote to the congregation in Ephesus from Roman imprisonment to remind them, in Ephesians 3.21,
“Unto him be glory in the church by Christ Jesus throughout all ages, world without end. Amen.”
Finally, is not the whole purpose of bearing “much fruit” as a believer in Jesus Christ to glorify God the Father? We recall our Lord’s words in John 15.8:
“Herein is my Father glorified, that ye bear much fruit; so shall ye be my disciples.”
So, we see, if the ultimate purpose of God’s activities in the human realm is His glory, then not only is the purpose in sending His Son to accomplish His saving work on the cross a means of God being glorified but the same purpose is fulfilled when the Savior, sent from God, in turn, dispatches His Own disciples.
That is the apparent meaning of the two parts of verse 18:
“As thou hast sent me into the world, even so have I also sent them into the world.”
Reflect with me, friends. Is not the providence of God a marvelous blessing? Here we are, one day short of four weeks from Christmas Day, and we find ourselves contemplating and seeking to understand and apply this particular verse.
WE BEGIN WITH THE FATHER SENDING THE SON
The first half of the verse records the Savior’s words to His heavenly Father:
“As thou hast sent me into the world.”
The Greek verb translated “hast sent me” is a form of the Greek verb á¼€postá½³llw, the noun form of the word translated “apostle.” Interestingly, this is the very word used in Mark 3.14 concerning the calling of the twelve apostles:
“And he ordained twelve, that they should be with him, and that he might send them forth to preach.”
It is also the description of the Savior used by the writer in Hebrews 3.1:
“Wherefore, holy brethren, partakers of the heavenly calling, consider the Apostle and High Priest of our profession, Christ Jesus.”
Perhaps it would be good for us to review the events leading up to our Lord praying these words:
- Throughout eternity the Triune Godhead existed an entirely self-sufficient existence without needs of any kind. He needed nothing, and he needed no one. Remember, He is the All-Sufficient One, Genesis 17.1.[1]
- At some point, the Triune Godhead created the angelic host, with Lucifer the first being created by God, the most beautiful and the most powerful of the heavenly host.[2] Others included two named Gabriel and Michael.[3]
- God then created the time-space-matter continuum and the expanse of this physical universe,[4] culminating in His creation of Adam, the first man, and Eve, the first woman.[5] God’s creative activities spanned six literal days, and what He created was very good.[6] Scripture records the heavenly host’s rejoicing as they witnessed the creation of God’s physical universe.[7] On the seventh day, He rested.[8]
- Sometime before Genesis 3.1, Lucifer rebelled against God’s rule and persuaded one-third of the host of heaven to join in his rebellion.[9] The war against God began. Genesis chapter three records the broadening of the war from the realm of angelic beings to the opening of a front in the human sphere with the tempting and sinning of Eve, then Adam, God’s confrontation of them, His promise of a coming Redeemer, and their expulsion from the Garden of Eden.
- The great Flood was God’s judgment upon the human race for their slide into greater wickedness and as a response to the supernatural attack upon the plan and purpose of God when fallen angels began to produce a race of hybrids impregnating human women.[10]
- The confusion of tongues at Babel was God’s following judgment upon the human race for their descent into idolatry and their refusal to disperse as He had directed.[11] God then gave over the human race to their devices and chose Abram as the first step in His plan of the ages to redeem lost mankind and defeat His great enemy, Satan.[12]
- With the promise initially made to Abram (the Abrahamic Covenant), his name was changed to Abraham. That unconditional covenant was reiterated to his son Isaac and his grandson Jacob (who was renamed Israel). A series of events were unfolded to transform one man’s family into a clan and then into a nation of twelve tribes, from whom would come the One to fulfill God’s promise made in the Garden of Eden.[13]
- At the appointed time, and fulfilling a series of explicit predictions made by Jewish prophets over the centuries concerning the manner of His conception,[14] the tribe of His birth,[15] the family into which He would be born,[16] the place of His birth,[17] and the time of His birth,[18] the Son of God was born to the virgin named Mary in the small village of Bethlehem.[19]
- The ontological impossibility had miraculously occurred. The Second Person of the Triune Godhead, infinitely immense, eternal, and omnipotent, stepped into the time-space-matter continuum He had created to begin His mission as the God-Man, Who would live among men as a man (a sinless man)[20] so that He might accomplish the great mission He had been dispatched by the Father to perform.
- His earthly public ministry would culminate when feeble and evil men took Him illegally and unjustly tried and convicted Him of crimes He did not commit and crucified Him by Roman soldiers.[21] What no man at the time realized, but which God had predicted using His prophets centuries earlier, is that the Lord Jesus Christ would take upon Himself the sins of others and would suffer punishment as the Substitutionary sacrifice for sins.[22]
- He would then perform other astonishing miracles. He who is life would die on the cross. After three days, He would rise from the dead in demonstration of His great victory over sin and Satan.[23] He would then ascend back to heaven to be enthroned at His Father’s right hand, where He is presently situated until He comes a second time to earth in power and great glory.[24]
All of this is summed up in the first half of our text, which is a pause for prayer before He took His men to Gethsemane, the place of His final season of prayer, His arrest, and from there to the beginning of His trials and crucifixion between two thieves, also predicted by a prophet.[25] If only I had the time to deal with each of the predictions made centuries in advance, His crown of thorns, the gambling for His clothes, His cry to the Father, etc. But we haven’t the time. Therefore, let us be careful to note the thrust of this first phrase, with us now grasping what lies back of His affirmation. The Lord Jesus Christ’s comment at this point in His prayer to the Father is an acknowledgment that He was sent into the world. He was on a mission.
Do you believe He accomplished His mission? Or do you think He failed? Some are of the opinion the Lord Jesus Christ failed, though such opinions are not studied conclusions, not informed evaluations, because they run so contrary to established historical facts. Although this prayer was offered before Christ’s mission was completed, His prayer is offered on the basis of His mission being completed. He was crucified. He was our sin-bearer. He shed His blood for the remission of our sins. He rose from the dead. His resurrection was the display of His success. He is enthroned in heaven. He is coming again.
WE END WITH THE SON SENDING THESE MEN
We now look at the second half of the verse,
“even so have I also sent them into the world.”
What the Father did by sending His Son, Jesus Christ, His Son, Jesus Christ, replicated by dispatching those eleven men. Pay attention to the fact that as the Father previously sent His Son, so His Son previously sent those men.
How does it happen that the Lord Jesus Christ previously sent those men the way the Father previously sent His Son? After all, the Lord Jesus Christ prayed this prayer before His crucifixion, and the Great Commission was not given until weeks after His resurrection. Remember that during His 3½ year earthly ministry, the Lord Jesus Christ sent out the original twelve apostles two-by-two. Then He sent out the seventy two-by-two.[26] What our Lord says in this verse is a reference to the previous dispatch of these men to preach the Gospel. I think that is what He is referring to. Thus, as the Lord Jesus Christ was sent by God the Father, so the Lord Jesus Christ, in turn, sent the twelve, and then sent the seventy, and later on, sent everyone.[27]
If glorifying God is the ultimate motive for everything God does, everything the Lord Jesus Christ does, the reason for the existence of the Church of Jesus Christ, and the reason for every believer’s existence, what do you imagine is the relationship between glorifying God and being sent on an evangelistic mission? After all, was not the Lord Jesus Christ sent by His Father on an evangelistic mission when He left the throne room in heaven to die on the cross? Did not the Lord Jesus Christ dispatch His twelve apostles on an evangelistic mission? Did not the Lord Jesus Christ dispatch the seventy on an evangelistic mission? And did not the Lord Jesus Christ make reference in this verse to having dispatched those eleven men on an evangelistic mission? Not to mention the Great Commission that was to come being an evangelistic commission.
If what life is ultimately all about is glorifying God, then we can only rightly conclude that what life is immediately about is evangelism. This is because the immediate activity of evangelism is an activity ordained by God to achieve the ultimate activity of glorifying Him. One does this so that what is accomplished is that. So then, the reason the Lord Jesus Christ prayed for His men to be preserved, and to be sanctified, was so they might continue to engage in evangelism and thereby continue to glorify God. Is this not the logical, rational, reasonable, and appropriate conclusion to draw from what we are dealing with in this portion of the Lord’s prayer to His Father?
Can we now conclude from this passage about God’s dealings with you and me? We most certainly can arrive at very plausible applications, can we not? The reason God preserves you and sanctifies you, the reason God works in your life to grow you so that you will be more and more like His Son Jesus Christ, is so that while you are this side of eternity, you will more effectively glorify God by more productively reaching the lost. It really is all about evangelism because it is really all about glorifying God. We do this so that we may accomplish that. The Lord Jesus Christ came to seek and to save that which was lost. He then chose twelve men and trained them to reach the lost (Judas was the exception who was addressed in an ancient prediction).[28] Then He chose and sent forth thirty-five pairs of men He had trained to reach the lost.
The way we verify our understanding is to see what comes after our Lord’s passion, observing the conduct of His followers following His resurrection. Does evidence seem to support the importance of evangelism as the means whereby fruit is born and God is glorified by those who come along later serving Him? The Great Commission would seem to suggest that, would it not? On the occasion of His final meeting with His followers before His ascension, we read the following account:
18 And Jesus came and spake unto them, saying, All power is given unto me in heaven and in earth.
19 Go ye therefore, and teach all nations, baptizing them in the name of the Father, and of the Son, and of the Holy Ghost:
20 Teaching them to observe all things whatsoever I have commanded you: and, lo, I am with you alway, even unto the end of the world. Amen.
The pattern seems to be established with the early believers. Beginning with Pentecost and the empowering of the Church, three thousand were saved on one day,[29] with about five thousand saved a few days later,[30] and with even more added to the Lord later, according to Acts 5.14. The pattern observed in Jerusalem was fervent evangelism. But what about elsewhere? What do we see as a pattern once persecution scattered the believers who had been in Jerusalem?[31] Luke informs us,
“Therefore they that were scattered abroad went every where preaching the word,”
Acts 8.4. Thus, the pattern persisted. The rest of Acts chapter eight tells us of the deacon Philip’s preaching in Samaria, then in Gaza to an Ethiopian eunuch, and rounding out the chapter in verse 40, where we are told,
“Philip was found at Azotus: and passing through he preached in all the cities, till he came to Caesarea.”
Do you suppose Philip was the only deacon from the Jerusalem Church who eagerly and persistently sought the salvation of the lost? Or did Luke pick him from among the others to illustrate an ongoing pattern?
We know from Acts chapter nine that Christians arrived in Damascus because Saul of Tarsus was on his way to that city to persecute believers there. More evidence of the pattern?
We know there were believers in Caesarea because Philip had gone there, Cornelius the Roman centurion was there, and Peter was dispatched there, Acts chapter ten. More evidence of the pattern?
By the time we get to Acts chapter eleven, we learn that Barnabas went to Antioch to minister to believers who were already there and that he took Paul with him. By the time we get to chapter thirteen, we find the Church in Antioch sending Paul and Barnabas out as missionaries. More evidence of the pattern?
Were they the only Church planters? Or were they the only guys Luke traveled with, so he focused on writing about their activities?
What we know is that the pattern continued for more than a century. The Gospel was hand-carried as far East as India, as far South as Africa, as far West as Spain, and who knows how far North. Thus, there was no confusion of any kind in the first century after Christ what being sent by Christ meant. It meant evangelism, and it meant witnessing. It meant Gospel outreach. It meant making Christ’s name known among the nations. And it meant doing that or die trying. Any Christian who did not do that was an anomaly, an unusual believer if a believer at all.
For years I have kept before this congregation the five basic historical facts that provide proof for anyone reasonable and rational that Jesus Christ rose from the dead.
No historian of repute denies that the Romans in Jerusalem crucified Jesus of Nazareth.
No historian of repute denies that early Christians were so convinced of Christ’s resurrection that they were willing to die to advance the Gospel.
No historian of repute denies that the greatest enemy of the Christian faith, Saul of Tarsus, became the greatest of all Christians, the Apostle Paul, based upon his encounter with the resurrected Savior.
There is no historian of repute who denies that the greatest of skeptics regarding the Christian faith was the Lord’s half-brother James, who became Christianity’s first prominent pastor as the senior pastor of the Jerusalem Church following his encounter with his raised from the dead Brother.
Those four historical realities are denied by no credible historian of note, with the fifth fact. It is the empty tomb where Christ had been buried, accepted by the great majority but admittedly not by all historians.[32]
Is not the resurrection of Christ from the dead, therefore, as close to being historically proven as any historical proof known to man? But I point that out not just to remind you of the historical proof that Jesus Christ rose from the dead.
I point this out that I might also remind you of three corollaries associated with this historical proof. First, many early Christians were willing to die to reach the lost, so convinced were they of Christ’s resurrection. And, we know about both Paul and James’ activities as fervent evangelists. Therefore, can there be any real doubt that it is all about evangelism? Reaching the lost? The question is not whether it is all about evangelism or about reaching the lost. It is whether there is such a thing as credible Christianity that is not focused on evangelism?
If the Father sent Christ, and Christ sent those men, and by application, we, too, are sent by Christ, dare we call ourselves Christians if we do not act like we are sent? If we do not live like we are sent? If we do not serve like we are sent?
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[1] John Gill, An Exposition Of Genesis - Newport Commentary Series, (Springfield, MO: Particular Baptist Press, reprinted 2010), page 292.
[2] Isaiah 14.12-15; Ezekiel 28.13-15
[3] Daniel 8.16; 9.21; 10.13, 21; 12.1; Luke 1.19, 26; Jude 9; Revelation 12.7
[4] Genesis 1.1; Psalm 8.3; 33.6; 102.25; Jeremiah 51.15; John 1.1-3; Colossians 1.16-17; Hebrews 1.10; 11.3
[5] Genesis 1.26-27; 2.7, 21-22
[6] Genesis 1.31
[7] Job 38.4-7
[8] Genesis 2.2-3; Exodus 20.11; Hebrews 4.4
[9] Revelation 12.3-9
[10] Genesis 6-7
[11] Genesis 11.1-9
[12] Genesis 12.1-3
[13] Genesis 3.15
[14] Isaiah 7.14; 9.6
[15] Genesis 49.9-10
[16] Psalm 132.11; Isaiah 11.1
[17] Micah 5.2
[18] Daniel 9.24-26
[19] Luke 1.26-2.20; Galatians 4.4
[20] Hebrews 4.15; 9.28
[21] Acts 2.23
[22] Genesis 22.8-14; Isaiah 53.4-12; 2 Corinthians 5.21; 1 Peter 3.18
[23] 1 Corinthians 15.3-8
[24] Psalm 16.11; 110.1; Matthew 26.64; Mark 12.36; 14.62; 16.19; Luke 20.42; 22.69; John 3.13; 13.1; 14.2-4; Acts 1.9-11; 2.33, 34-35; 7.56; Romans 8.34; Ephesians 1.20; 6.9; Colossians 3.1; Second Thessalonians 1.7; Hebrews 1.3, 13; 8.1; 9.24; 10.12-13; 12.2; 1 Peter 3.22; Revelation 19.11
[25] Isaiah 53.12
[26] Matthew 10.5; Luke 10.1
[27] Matthew 28.18-20; Mark 16.1516; Acts 1.8
[28] Psalm 41.9; John 13.18, 21
[29] Acts 2.41
[30] Acts 4.4
[31] Acts 8.1
[32] Gary R. Habermas and Michael R. Licona, The Case For The Resurrection Of Jesus, (Grand Rapids, MI: Kregel Publications, 2004).
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