We're once again in John 17, which is subtitled the High Priestly Prayer. We're reading through Jesus's prayer after the upper room. Last week we talked about verses 11 and 12 is what we really centered on. Today we're going to be back in verse 11. And we're going to be looking really at the last sentence in verse 11, just that last half, which says, Holy Father, keep them in your name, which you have given me, that they may be one, even as we are one. Let's pray. Father, I thank you for this. Thank you for this sentence, really, Lord. And pray that you would be with us this morning. I pray that you would be with me. Send your Spirit that you could speak through me and use me as a tool for your glory. Lord, I pray that you would open our hearts to hear you. In Jesus' name, Amen. So we're in Jesus' prayer, as I said. It's really been a series of days and weeks, even months, leading up to this night. And on this night, we know that Jesus is about to be arrested. It's really been on the top of his mind that he's going to be arrested and he's going to be killed. This is what he's been talking about all through the upper room. And even if you back up, it's all throughout the last week, the last week that he's been in Jerusalem. And he's really kind of mourning over his death a little bit. Matthew 23, 37, we read Jesus says, Jerusalem, Jerusalem, the city that kills the prophets and stones those who are sent to it. So this is what's on the top of Jesus' mind is that he's about to be killed. He's about to be killed by the Jews in the city of Jerusalem. So that's what he's been talking about. through the upper room. That's what's been on the top of his mind. But more importantly, Jesus' concern is about his disciples. That's his concern. His concern right now is not really about his death. His concern is about his disciples. He's preparing them. He's been preparing them for all of his ministry. He's been preparing them for his death. And we see this in chapter 17. He's preparing them for one reason. This reason is so that they don't fall away. Jesus tells Peter elsewhere in the scripture that Satan has demanded to sift you. But I have prayed for you that your faith would not fail you. Jesus wants these guys to continue. He wants their faith to not fail them. That's what he's been talking about. That's what he's been preparing them for. And that's now what we see in John chapter 17 that he is praying for. In the upper room, we see that the main push of this is about love. The main thing that's behind this prayer for them to not fall away is love. And the upper room has really been Jesus telling them, I love you. My father loves you. I need you to love me. I need you to trust me. I need you to love my father. Now he says, I have prayed for you. I am praying for you. We read that in verse 9. I have prayed for them. I am praying for them. I'm not praying for the world. for the disciples. That's a common saying for us, right? I'm praying for you. I'm praying for you. And hopefully we are praying for the people that we are telling them that we're praying for. But when Jesus says, I'm praying for you, this is something different. This is something bigger. This is something that can be trusted in. This is something that we can feel safe in, that Jesus is praying for us. And this is the most, as I've said before, this is the most important prayer ever recorded. This is the most extensive and detailed prayer that Jesus, that's recorded from Jesus. It really should be awe-inspiring for us to read this chapter. It should stop us in our tracks to read closer, to read into the details of this. because we have to recognize that we are on holy ground in this chapter. We are in the Holy of Holies with Jesus. Jesus purposefully brought us with Him into the throne room. It's intentional that Jesus prays publicly. We know that Jesus is intentional with all of his prayers, right? He's intentional where he prays, when he prays. We know that he is, even his physical demeanor, his physical, the way that he positions his body is recorded nearly every time that he prays. How he positions his body, we're told he threw himself on the ground in the Garden of Gethsemane. We're told here that he lifts his eyes up to heaven He tells us in the Sermon on the Mount, when you pray, go to your Father who is in secret, who sees you in secret. He withdrew at times specifically for prayer in private, but now in this prayer, we see that He's intentionally praying in public. He's intentionally doing this before the disciples. for the disciples to hear. And for us to hear. We know that He's doing this for us to hear because of v. 20. 1720 where Jesus says, I do not ask for these only, but also for those who will believe in Me through their word. He says through the disciples' word. Who here of us who's saved has been saved through a word written by one of the disciples? Hopefully all of us, right? This is important, that they record this prayer for us to read. So it's for us as well, but immediately in this time, in this specific prayer, it was for them specifically. And what does he pray for? We talked about this last week, that Jesus is our high priest. He's our high priest, and he's going before the Father, For all of eternity really, beginning in this chapter, He's going before the Father and praying for us. He's praying for us, and we're told in Hebrews 7.22 what He does as our High Priest. Hebrews 7.22 tells us Jesus is the guarantor of a better covenant. The former priests were many in number because they were prevented by death from continuing in office, but he holds his priesthood permanently because he continues forever. Consequently, he is able to save to the utter most. Jesus guarantees us a better covenant, a new covenant, under which we are the that guarantors the people who fall under that covenant, and Jesus is the high priest under that covenant. But what's important is that he saves to the uttermost. He is an eternal high priest. He is a permanent high priest, not like the old high priests who couldn't save to the uttermost because eventually they would die, as all humans do. But Jesus saves us eternally, and this is a covenant that cannot be broken. And this is what he prays for in chapter 17, that this covenant that saves us to the uttermost would not be broken. This is the main prayer that Jesus has for us. The main prayer, starting in verse 6, all the way down to the end of the chapter, the main thing Jesus asks for is that we would be kept by the Father. It's this prayer, this petition, that we read about. But there's specific things that he prays for, specific details that I don't want to miss. So I want to pause this week and really just focus on that last half of verse 11 because it's a prayer, it's a petition that Jesus asked for that we can't miss. And there's really three things towards the end of this section that Jesus prays for. The first is unity. That's in verse 11. That's what we'll talk about today. The second is joy. That's found in verse 13. And the third is Sanctification and that's found in verse 17 But today we'll just talk about unity Unity, this is what Jesus prays for this is why he wants us to be kept in the Father's name is for our unity So look at the verse we need to see how Jesus words this Holy Father keep them in your name Which you have given me Keep them in your name, which you have given me, so that they can be one." This all hinges on us being kept in the Father's name, so we need to understand what that means, to be kept in the Father's name. This is similar to verse six, where Jesus says, I have manifested your name. There's a lot of talk about God's name in these verses. I have manifested your name. He says, keep them in your name, which you have given to me. What is this? The name of God. What is this? What does this mean? We talked about it a little bit a few weeks ago, but this is really the attributes of God. God's name carries the full weight of his glory. The full weight of his glory. This is why he names himself in the Old Testament, I am who I am. He names himself, I am. Because there's no other word, there's no other statement that can describe the full weight of God's glory. If you were to use any other way to describe God, it would fall short. To say God is eternal, or God is omnipresent, or God is omnipotent, only touches one aspect of who God is. That's why he names himself, I am who I am, because that's the only way he can describe himself, is as God. But this, when Jesus says, keep them in your name, he's talking about the attributes of God, right? We've all heard about the attributes of God, who God is. It's theological terms that we've come up with that describe aspects of what God is. And there's these big attributes, right? These big eternal attributes. He's omnipotent, right? That means He's all-powerful. There's no limit to His power. He's immutable. He's unchanging. He's omnipresent. There's no end to his physical existence. He exists everywhere, all the time. He's infinite. He is existence itself. He is God. But there's more abstract attributes, and this is really what I think Jesus is getting at. There's these abstract attributes, almost personality traits of God, that he's holy, right? He's holy, he's merciful, he's compassionate, he's graceful, he's good to people, he's kind, he's even wrathful. Wrathful and just, and Jesus embodies all of those attributes. We read that Jesus emptied himself to become a man. He emptied himself of a certain glory when he became a man, because men cannot be omnipotent, men cannot be infinite, men cannot be all-powerful. He emptied himself of those things, but he did not empty himself of these personality traits, these abstract attributes of God that he is kind and he is holy and he is good. The most important attribute that Jesus didn't empty himself of, that Jesus embodied his whole life, is found in 1 John 4, 8, where it's stated simply that God is love. This, in my opinion, and you can disagree with me, is the most important attribute of God, is that he is love. It's his most obvious attribute. It's his most displayed attribute throughout the scriptures. that He is love. This is the most important aspect of His name. To bear the name of God is to be love. That explains verse 6 where Jesus says, I have manifested Your name. Jesus manifested true love. He manifested true love. Jesus was easily the most loving person ever. And it's not even a close second. The whole reason that Jesus came to earth, the whole reason that he became a man, is love. 1 John 4, verse 8, I just quoted this verse, but I want to read the whole verse. 1 John 4, verse 8 tells us, Anyone who does not love does not know God, because God is love. You can't know God unless you know love because God is love. Verse 9, in this the love of God was made manifest among us. This is how God's love was manifest among us, that God sent his only son into the world so that we might live through him. This is the display of God's love. This is the height and the depth of God's love is that he sent his son. This is the full manifestation of his Love. That God sent His Son into the world that we might live through Him. Back to John 17, verse 11. Father, keep them in Your name which You have given to me. This name that Jesus manifested to us is shown to us in his death, it's shown to us by his dying for us, but not only dying for us, it's also shown to us in his living, his living a perfect life, all the while he's loving sinners. One of my favorite verses is, it's actually recorded in Mark and Luke and Matthew. It's not recorded in John for some reason, but Mark says it best, he says, it's not the healthy who need a doctor, but the sick. I have come not to call the righteous, but sinners." Jesus came for sinners. He came to love sinners. This is the name that Jesus prays for us to be kept in. The name of love. And now it's our job. It's our job to manifest God's name. It's our job to love people. He wants us to be kept in the Father's name so that we can love. Jesus wants us to love as He has loved. John 13, 34 is the command that God gives us, that Jesus gives us. The most important command that He gives us, the second most important. John 13, 34, a new commandment I give to you, that you love one another as I have loved you. This is why He wants us to be kept in His name, to be loved as He has been loved. So why does Jesus want to be kept in His name? He wants us to be kept for love, but what does that mean? He tells us in John 17, verse 11, And He qualifies that statement so that we can be one with even as we are one. He wants us to be unified the way that He is unified with His Father. So to understand the unity that we're supposed to have, we need to understand the unity that Jesus has. And that's shown to us in the Trinity. And the Trinity is the nature of God, that He exists as three persons. He's eternally existed as three persons. And the nature of the Trinity, what binds the Trinity together, perhaps you guessed it, is love. That's what binds the Trinity together, is this love. God is three persons and they are perfectly unified. They're perfectly unified. This is how John can tell us in 1 John that God is love because of the Trinity. See, if God was a single person, if God was a singular being, right, like Allah in Islam, there would be no love. We couldn't say that God is love if he was a singular person. But since he's a trinity, since he's three persons, and there's perfect love existing within these three persons for all of eternity, that's how we can make the statement that God is love. There's no love in a singular person that is a God. There's only self, there's only selfishness in a God that is existing as one person. This is the unity that Jesus has with his Father. It's a perfect unity. It's unconditional. Unconditional, eternal love. Jesus is constantly looking to do the Father's will. He's constantly looking to obey the Father. This is the love that he has for him. Jesus tells us that love is shown in this, that you obey. And so Jesus is obeying His Father. John 5, 19. Truly, I tell you, the Son can do nothing by Himself. He can only do what He sees the Father doing. That's how unified He is. He doesn't do anything outside of His Father's will or outside of what He even sees the Father doing. Because He loves His Father perfectly. Even to His own detriment, we read. Jesus loves his father and he obeys his father even to his own death. Death on a cross. He obeyed all the way to his death. This is the unity that Jesus desires for us to have in our lives. So who are we supposed to be unified with? Are we supposed to be unified with each other? Are we supposed to be unified with God in this way? Jesus prays that we would know the unity that He has with His Father. So are we supposed to be unified with God the way that Jesus is unified with God? It's both. We are both supposed to be unified with each other and unified with God. Now this aspect of unity with God is is really important in the Christian life. That we love God. That we be unified with God. How do we get this unity? What is the nature of this unity? John 14, verse 20 tells us, In that day you will know that I am in my Father, and you in me, and I in you. Whoever has my commandments and keeps them, he it is who loves me. whoever has my commandments and keeps them. He who loves me will be loved by my Father, and I will love him and manifest myself to him. Judas said to him, Lord, how is it that you will manifest yourself to us and not to the world? If anyone loves me, he will keep my word, and my Father will love him, and we will come to him and make our home in him." This is how you get this unity. This is the key to all of this is obedience. This is the key to the love that we have for the Father, the love that we receive from the Father, and the love that we give to the Father is through obedience. Do you want Jesus to manifest Himself to you? Do you want to be unified with God the way that Jesus is unified with God? That He's unable, unable to do anything outside of what He sees the Father doing? Do you want that in your life? To understand Jesus, to understand the Father, you have to obey. This has been set out for us that obedience and love are always connected. They're always connected. It's a cycle that when you obey God, you love God more. And when you love God more, you obey God more. We must be in that progression as Christians. We have to be obeying God so that we love God. And if you don't know that cycle, if you don't understand that process of obeying God and it resulting in love for Him, then I'll ask you right now, begin that cycle. Begin that process with God that when you love Him, you obey Him. There's a peace for you. There's a peace offered to you beyond all understanding. There's a peace that the world cannot offer. There's a peace in knowing that you are loved by the Lord. And the only way that you obtain that is by obedience and love. So you begin this with asking. Asking as Jesus did. Praying to the Lord that he would reveal himself to you, that he would manifest himself to you. Now, the second kind of unity. Not unity with the Lord, but unity with each other. Unity with the fellow saints. This is really what I think is what Jesus is getting at in this verse. Verse 11. That we have unity with each other. And this unity with each other is oneness and love. To love one another. This is a commandment. That you love one another as I have loved you. This command to love people, to love one another, is found all over the New Testament. Up and down the New Testament, over and over again, we're told to love each other. This word love actually appears 315 times in the New Testament, depending on your translation. 315 times. In the Gospel of John, it occurs 57 times. And in 1 John, it occurs 46 times. That's a total of 103 times. That's a third of the New Testament. A third of the occurrences of the word love are found in John's writings. That's actually 14% of the whole Bible. 14% is found just in John's writing. This is an important thing that we can't miss, that we love one another. This love means not pushing your own way. Not pushing your own way and your own thoughts. Not forcing people to think the way that you think. And this is so against the world's definition of unity. The world's definition of unity is a disgusting misrepresentation of what it means to be truly unified. It's twisted. It's twisted. I read a statistic that 80% of Americans, 81, 82, something like that, but 80% of Americans think that we are less unified than ever before. Less unified than ever before. Why is that? Because if you've paid attention to politics for the last, I don't know, 100 years, Everybody wants unity. Everybody is constantly talking about unity. And this last week especially, if you paid attention to anything that went on, or any speech at all, everybody is talking about unity. Both sides. Both sides of the political aisle are saying, let's be unified, let's be unified. So if everyone is fighting for unity in the world, everybody's fighting for unity. Why can they not be unified? Why can we not be unified if everybody wants the same thing? Well, there's folks in the world, there's people in the world that perpetuate the disunity, right? People in the news media, political figures, people want disunity because it makes them money or some such thing, but I think there are truly people in the world that really do want unity. They really do want unity, and maybe it's for selfish reasons because there's power in unity, right? There's power when we're all fighting for the same thing. But there's people that really do want this stuff. But the problem is with the world's unity. The problem with the world's unity is the way that they obtain unity is by getting everyone to agree with them. Nobody's willing to give up their own beliefs. Nobody's willing to give up their own ideas in order to be unified. Everybody wants everyone else to agree with them, and that's how we'll be unified. If you listen to Kamala Harris's concession speech, she wouldn't stop talking about unity. But if you read between the lines, she's saying, let's be unified, everybody, let's be unified against Trump. That's not unity. That's not unity. And that's definitely not the unity that Christ calls us towards. It's the opposite of what Christian unity is. Yet, even in Christian circles, it's a sad thing to watch the Christian online community. If you get on Facebook or Twitter or anything and you scroll for more than two minutes, you'll see people that are just trying to start fights. Even Christians, Christians that are making controversial statements on purpose, on purpose to annoy people. It's a sad thing to watch. I think it's a bit of an American mindset to look for a fight, to look where my rights are being infringed on, and to fight for that. It's a constant fighting, even in the Christian circles, and the world watches that. The world watches the infighting. The world sees it. This is not what Jesus commanded us to do. John 13, 34. A new commandment I give to you that you love one another as I have loved you. By this, everyone will know that you are my disciples. By this, everyone will know. If you are not loving, if you do not know love, you do not know God. That's what we're told. And if you are loving, and you are sacrificing your own ways and your own life for other people, everyone will know that you are a disciple. This is why it's so important for us to have unity and to have love. amongst ourselves because you're not going to get that anywhere else. You're definitely not going to get it from the world because there's no love in the world. There's no unity in the world. We will read later, perhaps next week or the week following. Jesus tells us that we are hated because we are not of the world. Verse 14, I have given them your word and the world has hated them because they are not of the world. The only place that we get love is from God and from each other, from fellow believers. And so it's our responsibility to love each other. And this is how we will be known by the world. Amen. Let's pray. Father, I pray that you would give us unity. I pray that you would give us love for each other and even love for the world, Lord. Pray that we would desire to give up our own ways and to give up ourselves and to sacrifice our own lives even for others, Lord. Pray that you would keep us in your name so that we can love as Jesus loved. In Jesus' name, amen.