I invite you to take your Bibles out this morning and turn with me to John's Gospel, Chapter 17, as we wrap up the great High Priestly Prayer of Jesus. We're going to do that by focusing on the last three verses, but I'd like to read the entire prayer once again this morning. John's Chapter 17. If you're visiting this morning for the first time, we've been working our way through John's Gospel. We're about to enter into chapter 18, the passion of our Lord Jesus. And chapter 17, he's still with his disciples. He prays to the Father and we get to listen in. And so let's listen in as he does so, John 17. 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, since you have given him of over all flesh, authority over all flesh, to give eternal life to all whom you have given him. And this is eternal life, that they know you, the only true God, and Jesus Christ, whom you have sent. I glorified you on earth, having accomplished the work that you gave me to do. And now, Father, glorify me in your own presence with the glory that I had with you before the world existed. 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. Now they know that everything that you have given me is from you for I have given them the words that you gave me and they have received them and come to know the truth that I came from you and they have believed that you sent me. I am praying for them. I am not praying for the world but for those whom you have given me for they are yours. All mine are yours and yours are mine and I am glorified in them 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. 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. But now I am coming to you, and these things I speak in the world, that they may have my joy fulfilled in themselves. 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. I do not ask that you take them out of the world, but that you keep them from the evil one. They are not of the world, just as I am not of the world. Sanctify them in your truth. Your word is truth. As you sent me into the world, so I sent them into the world. And for their sake, I consecrate myself that they also may be sanctified in truth. I do not ask for these only but also for those who will believe in me through their word that they may all be one just as you father are in me and I in you that they also may be in us so that the world may believe that you have sent me the glory that you have given me I have given to them that they may be one even as we are one I in them and you in me that they may become perfectly one so that the world may know that you sent me and loved them even as you loved me. And now our text. Father, I desire that they also whom you have given me may be with me where I am to see my glory that you have given me because you loved me before the foundation of the world. O righteous Father, even though the world does not know you, I know you, and these know that you have sent me. I 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. Let's pray and ask God's blessing. Father, would you this morning in a very real and personal and corporate way conform us to the one who prayed this prayer and continues to pray this and many prayers on our behalf, even Jesus Christ, by your spirit, in whose name we pray, amen. Well, as we're gathered almost every night around the family table together, talking, trying to connect, one of the things that we've done is to ask our children and one another what a perfect day might look like in the lives of each of our family members. If you had just one day to do anything that you wanted to do, to go anywhere that you wanted to go with the people you love the most, where would you go and why would you go there? Perhaps you would go on a trip somewhere to a place that you've never traveled before but you've always wanted to. Or maybe you would take a day to go to that one familiar place where you have so many memories. And you would go with your loved ones and you would go to your favorite restaurants and it would just be a wonderful day. But what if we asked Jesus not the same, but a similar question? What if we asked Jesus, Jesus, what would thrill your heart more than anything else when it comes to eternity? What would make Jesus forever delighted? But we don't have to wonder because as we come to the end of this magnificent high priestly prayer in John 17, Jesus in this prayer to the Father tells us, here's the one thing I want more than anything else. Are you ready for this? Father, I want my people, I want my blood-bought sons and daughters, I want my beloved bride to be with me where I am. But not just to be with me, I want them to see my glory like they've never seen it before. This would thrill Jesus' heart. for his church to be with him in heaven and for us to there see him in his glory like we've never seen it before. Let's try to unpack that by noticing first what he wants, what he desires. We've been seeing together that John 17 is very much hallowed ground. It's one of those places in the Bible that feels like you have to take off your sandals, your shoes. as you get to listen in. But if St. Clair Ferguson is right, then verse 24 in particular is, as he calls, the holiest place of all. Verse 24, here is an astonishing insight into the pulse of Jesus' heart, Jesus' priorities. Verse 24, Father, I desire, this is what I want, that they also whom you, notice, have given me may be with me where I am to see my glory that you have given me because you love me before the foundation of the world. Notice who he's praying for, for those whom you, Father, have given to me. The church that is, is the father's gift to the son. by way of the Father's own initiative. We saw this in many places already in John's gospel, but in the prologue, we read this in chapter one, verses 12 and 13. But to all who did receive him, that is Jesus, who believed in his name, he gave the right to become children of God, who were born, not of blood, nor of the will of the flesh, nor of the will of man, but, notice, of God. of God, God's doing, God's electing choice and deliberate intentionality before the foundation of the world. So Jesus is praying for every born again Christian in every generation, including those who have yet to come to faith in him and yet have been called before the foundations of the world. And he wants two things. He wants us to be with him and he wants us to see him. The first has to do with location, the second with perception. That we would be with him. Now when Jesus says where I am, boys and girls, this can be a bit confusing because when Jesus prays this, he's of course on earth still. He hasn't even entered Gethsemane yet. He's with his disciples. and yet he prays as if he's already in heaven. Is Jesus just being presumptuous? Does Jesus forget that he has something to accomplish first? He's not being presumptuous. He's trusting his father's wise plan. He knows the cost of what will transpire in the upcoming hours, but he has such confidence in the plan. He knows exactly the design that he can say as if he's already in heaven, as already passed through the heavens and returned to the Father where I am. Notice also how Jesus refers to God. And don't miss it, verse 25. Did you catch it as I read the text? He addresses him this way, oh righteous Father. Oh righteous Father. Jesus is about to enter the most unjust, unfair situation that has ever been experienced to a human being. The perfect, spotless, sinless Son of God is going to be betrayed. He's going to be arrested. He's going to be tried. The leadership is gonna say he didn't do anything wrong, and the crowd is going to say, well, we want him dead anyways, and so, because of fear of man, they're gonna hand him over, and he's gonna die on a Roman cross, even though he didn't do anything wrong. He didn't do anything to deserve it. If anyone can say that he has experienced injustice, it is the Lord Jesus Christ. And yet, knowing all of that, he can still say, in this moment, O righteous Father, It's significant. He's entrusting himself and his future and his cross to his father's plan, his father's wisdom, even his father's righteousness. We too, we as followers of Jesus, as those who bear his name, as those who have his spirit, as those who have been granted his grace and forgiveness, can also trust in the Father's wise bestowment and be able to more and more, by his grace and with his help, trust and call him, oh, righteous Father. Despite what we are experiencing, even though we don't understand all things, this is who we serve, this is who we worship, this is the God who is, this is the God who lives, and in whom we live and move and have our being, both our Father in heaven, but also the one who is perfectly, absolutely, sovereignly righteous. Who doesn't make mistakes, who knows exactly what he's doing in your life at this particular moment. And Jesus knew that. And so Jesus says a righteous father. And when he returns to his father's right hand, when he sits down at his place of honor, what does he want when he gets there? Well, you'd think a reunion with his father would be enough, don't you? to be reunited in his heavenly glory, the same glory that he always had from all eternity, where he would bask in his rightful position as the King of Kings and the Lord of Lords, to once again experience that kind of close, eternal, intimate fellowship and communion within the Godhead of the Father, Son, and Holy Spirit. But he says to the Father, what he wants is to spend eternity With us. With us. With the very same people, if we're honest, who spit in his face, the very same ones whose sins nailed him to the cross. The question is why would he want to do that? Why would Jesus want to be with people like us? And the answer is because he loves us. Not because we're by nature lovely or worthy, but because before the foundation of the world, he set his heart upon us. It's not that Jesus loves us despite the way he really feels, or against his will, as if Jesus is just grinding his teeth and putting up with us. As if this is some divine arranged marriage, and as Jesus looks down the aisle at his bride, he's, well, a little disappointed. Sometimes that's the way you feel maybe about both the Father and maybe Jesus, that he's just a little disappointed with you. But the Lord Jesus Christ, as we see it in this prayer, is sincere in his love for you. He doesn't just have to love you, but he gets to, he wants to. And the same is true with the Father. John 3.16 says, for God the Father so loved the world that He, the Father, gave His only begotten Son. We sung of it earlier, the church of His Son is the apple of His eye. We are the joy that was set before Jesus to endure the cross. We were Jesus' top choice. Paul says to husbands in Ephesians 5, for example, husbands, we are to love our wives as Christ loves the church. Well, how much is that? It's far beyond what we could even comprehend. That's the standard, that's the measure. That's the intensity and the loyalty and the sacrifice of Jesus' love for his church. And if you're here this morning as a blood-bought child of the living God, born again, trusting in Jesus Christ, if that's true of you, then Jesus cannot love you any more than he does right now. Think about that. If you're resting in him, if you're resting in his salvation for you, if you're saved and redeemed and born again, Jesus and the Father and the Spirit cannot love you more than they do this very moment. It's a love that began far before you were ever around. It's amazing. Doesn't mean we can't grieve his heart, we do. but his love for us, his gospel love does not change. In fact, he loves us so much that he's fiercely committed to making us ready to meet him. Sometimes that love comes in a variety of forms. Sometimes it's a discipline love, right, where he chastises us and he rebukes us, but he loves us nonetheless. So let me ask you this morning, are you resting in that love? I mean you, second person singular. Are you, am I, resting in that love? Maybe that sounds like too basic of a question for OPC people. I mean what I ask. Are you today, am I today, resting in the Father and the Son's love? that Jesus loved you and gave himself up for you and your sins, your particular sins. Jesus wants to be with you. And if you're not his, if you don't know him, but you sense in your heart that you wanna know this Jesus, then you're called to repent of your sin and to turn today and to trust and follow him. but he doesn't just want us to be with him in glory, he wants us to see him for who he really is. Look with me again at verse 24. Father, I desire that they also whom you've given me may be with me where I am, here it is, here's the purpose clause, to see my glory. To see my glory that you've given me "'because you loved me before the foundation of the world.'" In a very true and real sense, anyone who is a Christian has already seen the glory of Jesus Christ. That's what this book is all about, the revelation of the glory of the Son. We saw that again in the prologue, in chapter one, verse 14, that familiar Christmas verse, verse 14, and the word became flesh and dwelt among us, and we have seen his glory, glory as of the only Son from the Father, full of grace and truth. And certainly John, as an apostle, was an eyewitness to the glory of the Lord Jesus Christ. But any Christian has also seen the glory of God in the face of Jesus. If you wanna become a Christian, you must come to terms with who Jesus is. He's more than a mere man or prophet or miracle worker. He is the Son of God. He is full of glory. That's what it means, in a sense, to be a Christian. You have to see Jesus and his glory with the eyes of faith. So if that's true, if that's in part what it means to be a Christian and become a Christian, Then why does Jesus pray the way that he does here in this high priestly prayer? Why does Jesus ask the Father that we would see his glory in heaven? What does he mean? In what sense will that be different than the glory we've already seen in Jesus by faith? Well, we now see in a glass darkly. We live amongst the shadow lands. There are yet scales clouding our vision. We see the truth, but we see it dimly. We have yet both due to our ongoing sin, but also because of the sheer splendor of his true and magnificent glory, we have yet to fully see him as he really is and always has been. We've seen him and John saw him only in his incarnation, that great humiliation where he laid down his magnificent glory. That's what he did, he laid it down, Philippians 2. And Isaiah 53 says this of Jesus, he had no form or majesty that we should behold him, no beauty that we should desire him. He was despised and rejected by men. And as one from whom men hide their faces, he was despised and we esteemed him not. Of course, that's the whole point. That's where his glory is paradoxically found in his weakness. Ultimately, on a Roman cross, that is where we see the glory of God in the face of Jesus Christ. And yet, as Jesus thinks about heaven, he wants his church to see him in all of his resurrected beauty and glory, where he will still forever be fully human and fully divine. where now he is at the Father's right hand with all potency, with all authority. He wants us to see him like that. We often say we wish we could see our dads, for example, or our grandpas, for example, in their glory days. I often think this with my dad in the glory days of his youth. Time to embarrass him. Here's a basketball star, and he won't tell you that, but I think he was. At least that's what I've been told by others. I would love to see those glory days. Dad could run and shoot and jump and do all the things that he used to be able to do. Or I'd love to see my grandfather in the height of his energy and strength before age set in when I knew him. or what it'd be like to see my brother Stephen with muscles running faster than anyone. I'd love to see Stephen in his glory. But one day I will. The glory of these men who are saved by grace will be magnificent in the new heavens and the new earth. But if that's true of them, just think about how true it is of Jesus. We're not only gonna see him in his incarnation, but we're gonna see him in all of his glory. Not just with the eyes of faith, but with the sight of real perfection. The same Apostle John picks this up in his letter where he says, behold, what manner of love the Father has lavished on us, that we should be called children of God, and so we are. The reason why the world doesn't know us is that it didn't know him. Beloved, we are God's children now, and what we will be has not yet appeared, but we know that when he appears, we shall be like him, for we shall see him as he is. That's what Jesus wants for you this morning, for you to see him finally with perfect accuracy, to no longer be weighed down and distracted by sin, but with the eyes of faith to be fixated on him with sight. See, now we see him, don't we, in glimpses. We do, we taste it. If you know him, you've seen him by faith. You've had glimpses of his glory and his radiancy and his beauty. But like a sunset, it quickly fades from view. And we get buried with our tasks and we get disoriented by our own flesh. But one day we'll see him as he really is because we will be made like him. To see here used by John means to observe with sustained attention. To observe with sustained attention, that is forever. Jesus will be so mesmerizing and magnetizing and inviting that heaven's joy will be to simply look upon him and to know that he's been the answer we've been looking for our entire lives. If C.S. Lewis was right, and I think he was, the problem is not that we long for glory. It's not that we're glory seekers. It's that we're ironically far too easily pleased. And so he said, we fool about with sex and drink and ambition when infinite joy is offered us. Like a little boy who goes on making mud pies in a slum because he cannot even imagine what is meant by the offer of the holiday at the sea. We confuse the echoes for the real thing. We trifle with mere imitations and our hearts remain empty and longing for more. And we know there must be something more, yet we can hardly comprehend what that might be. But one day it will all make sense when we see the face of Jesus. When our faith is turned to sight. That's what Jesus wants in this prayer. Not just that you are with him in heaven, but for you to be like him, to see him for who he really is in all of his glory. But is that all Jesus wants? Is this just a prayer for the future? Is Jesus just looking ahead? Is this one of those sermons, well, just hang on, it's gonna get better. And that's absolutely true. We need to hang on because it's gonna get a lot better. But is there anything for us now? Or do we just have to wait to comprehend it? Or is there a way for those scales to keep coming off? Well, notice finally and briefly what he promises. As we venture on from grace to glory, winged by faith and armed by prayer, as the hymn writer puts it, Jesus makes this incredible promise to the Father in verse 26, saying, I 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. A couple of weeks ago, beloved, we saw that Jesus continues to pray on our behalf. But here we might put it like this. Jesus continues to preach on our behalf. Every week when the gospel is proclaimed, it's as if Jesus was right here with us, opening up the Father's heart. Showing us what God is like. Showing us what the cross has accomplished. Showing us what forgiveness means. And in the Lord's Supper too, by the Spirit in faith, it's as if he is our host. As if by the Spirit, Jesus is really here with us because spiritually he is. Imagine how that might transform your ride to church next week. If we came with that sense of expectation that Jesus by his word through his spirit is here with us, making the father known as he preaches his word to us, especially in the preaching of his cross, That's where the scales keep falling off. We're so naturally and easily and quickly disoriented. What we need from week to week and what our neighbors so desperately need are not pep talks. We need an encounter. with the glory of God in the face of Jesus Christ. That's what we need every single week. That's what I need every single morning. Because my heart believes the lie. I'm fickle. I forget. I'm disoriented. I can be cast down. That's where the darkness is chased away and the light comes crashing in to our hearts. where we begin seeing things as they really are. Paul says it like this in 2 Corinthians 3, 18, and we all, with unveiled face, beholding the glory of the Lord, are being transformed into the same image from one degree of glory to another. What is he saying? You become what you behold. you become what you behold. Whatever you worship, that's what you become like. So as we look to Jesus, and as the cross is preached before us, as we see the Lord Jesus Christ by faith, and we learn together to behold him, we, over time, slowly, become like him. we become conformed to his image. And here's what happens, as the Father's love is shown to us, that love transforms us from the inside out. Last time we just touched on the end of verse 23 where Jesus is praying about unity, but he says, I in them and you in me, verse 23, that they may become perfectly one, so that the world may know that you sent me and, here it is, loved them even as you loved me. That phrase even as means to the same or exact degree. In other words, if you're a Christian, if you know Jesus, the father loves you, sinner, to the same degree that he loves his son. The question is, how is that even possible? Doesn't a parent love his child in a particular, special way? Yes, but here's what's so staggering. In Jesus, we are God's children. Not by right, but by grace, by adoption. The heart of the father is so enormously full of love that he can love all his blood-bought children equally with the same sincerity and equal intensity that he loves his only son Jesus Christ. That's how loved we are and that's a message we need to hear over and over and over again. As we together come into church broken and weary and need to see Jesus with the eyes of faith, And as we behold him in the preaching of his cross, we become like him more and more. Until one day, we will be just like him. Not worthy of glory, but conformed to his image. And then we will see him. And our faith will be turned to sight. But in the meantime, Jesus not only prays for us, but Jesus, as it were, preaches to us. And the scales continue to come off. We're gonna close with this wonderful song this morning, The Sands of Time Are Sinking, and the words are so helpful. I'll close with these. The sands of time are sinking. The dawn of heaven breaks. The summer morn I've sighed for, the fair sweet morn awakes. Dark, dark hath been the midnight, but day spring is at hand, and glory, glory dwelleth in Emmanuel's land. The king there in his beauty without a veil is seen. It were a well-spent journey, though seven deaths lay between. The lamb with his fair army doth on Mount Zion stand, and glory, glory dwelleth in Emmanuel's land. O Christ, he is the fountain, the deep, sweet well of love. The streams on earth I've tasted, more deep I'll drink above. There to an ocean fullness, his mercy does expand, and glory, glory dwelleth in Emmanuel's land. The bride eyes not her garment, but her dear bridegroom's face. I will not gaze at glory, but on my king of grace. Not at the crown he giveth, but on his pierced hand. The lamb is all the glory of Emmanuel's land. Jesus wants you to be with him. Make sure that you are. And he wants you to see him for who he really is. And by grace one day you will. And that happens today as we see him in his wonderful cross. Where we see the love of the father revealed to us the sinner. And so let's bask in that glory today and always let's pray. Father, we thank you for the Lord Jesus's prayer for us. Lord, it feels, yes, we've been standing on holy ground. It also feels to a certain degree like we've been just scratching at the surface. And yet, Lord, what a delight it's been to enjoy this banquet together. And now as we Continue making our way through this marvelous gospel as we enter into his passion, Lord, may we do so, remembering that it was all for love and that we are those who have received it only by grace. And so may we rest in that this week, Lord. May that be our take home today, to rest in his love. In Jesus' name, amen.