John chapter two, verses 13 through 22. Hear the word of God. Now the Passover of the Jews was at hand and Jesus went up to Jerusalem and he found in the temple those who sold oxen and sheep and doves and the money changers doing business. When he had made a whip of cords, he drove them all out of the temple with the sheep and the oxen and poured out the changers' money and overturned the tables. And he said to those who sold doves, Take these things away. Do not make my father's house a house of merchandise. Then his disciples remembered that it was written, Zeal for your house has eaten me up. So the Jews answered and said to him, What sign do you show to us since you do these things? Jesus answered and said to them, Destroy this temple, and in three days I will raise it up. Then the Jews said, it has taken 46 years to build this temple, and you will raise it up in three days. But he was speaking of the temple of his body. Therefore, when he had risen from the dead, his disciples remembered that he had said this to them, and they believed the scripture and the word which Jesus had said. And Father, we thank You for Your patience with us and our forgetfulness. And we thank You for the faithfulness of Your Holy Spirit to remind us of Your Scriptures. And I pray that You would give Your Holy Spirit's illumination that we might understand the book of John better, and worship You better, and serve You better as a result of looking at it. We pray this in Jesus' name. Amen. I think about wore some of you guys out with my long introduction on Luke, so what I'm going to do for the introductory material today is give you this material without necessarily proving every point, and we'll see how that goes. I feel no need to prove that John was the author of John. There are people who—but only liberals really question that. The external and the internal evidence, I think, is quite strong. But I just want to look at who was John. John was part of the inner circle of the closest friends to Jesus, of Peter, James, and John, and he is explicitly said to be the apostle whom the Lord loved, and by that it means he was John's best friend. Now he was close to Peter and James as well, but he was the closest friend to John. Now just even on this first point, I think we can make application, if even Jesus had friends that He depended upon, that He confided in, that He prayed with, that He spent time with and hung out with, then all of us need friends. And there's nothing wrong with having friends, and closer friends, and best friends. I think that's a natural progression for people who are finite. There's only so much time that can go around. And if friendship needs to be nurtured and developed, what better model can we have than to look to the Lord Jesus for how to develop friendships? I would really encourage you guys sometime to do some topical studies within books. I've done a number of topical studies within the book of John, looking at faith and all of its synonyms. Another one is I've looked at all the inter-Trinitarian relationships. and how that impacted our relationships within the family, how we imitate father and son relationships, for example. But I would encourage you sometime for your children to do a study of the book of John. Just read through it and make note of everything that it says about Jesus' relationship to Peter, James, and John. I think you'll discover a lot. How he avoided certain unhealthy patterns that you'll find in friend relationships, but he also nurtured the friendships that were there. And I think you'll find it to be a very fun study. How close was John to Jesus? Well, in John chapter 19, when Jesus is hanging on the cross, he said to his mother, woman, behold your son. And he said to John, behold your mother. And then verse 27 says, and from that hour, that disciple took her to his own house. So there was something very, very special about the relationship that John had with Jesus. Jesus was closer to John than he was to his own siblings. Now it's not as if he didn't care for his siblings. His dad had died earlier and he was pretty much the provider for his siblings and he certainly was caring for his mother here and showing that he did not want her to be vulnerable. But let's deal with another bit of background information, and that's the date of the book. Since almost everybody agrees that John is the last gospel to be written, we don't need to comment on that, but the timing of the book also helps us to avoid certain misunderstandings that have happened. If you read much in the commentaries, you will find people with liberal bents who say that John appears to be an anti-Semite. Which is ridiculous because he was a Jew right but they say he was an anti-semite because 71 times in the book of John he describes the enemies of Christ as the Jews Why does he say the Jews did that and the Jews did this? It's something that makes some people say well, maybe he was a Gentile who wrote this book. No, that's far from the truth Let's think about the date of the book It is my belief that the book was written in A.D. 65, and though the Jewish leadership had persecuted Christianity right from the get-go, it was really not until A.D. 62 that Israel as a whole officially entered into a seven-year covenant with Rome for the purpose of destroying Christianity. Now, back in 8030, Rome had taken away the right to the death penalty from Israel, but they restored that in 8062, and Israel began aggressively using that to persecute Christians. And if you want information on that seven-year period, I'll put that up onto the web. So, just as the Council of Trent was the turning point when Rome officially became a synagogue of Satan and no true church, AD 62 was the year in which Israel officially became the apostate enemy of Christ. Now, they had acted like an enemy earlier, before that, and the synagogues had already expelled most Christians from those synagogues by this time. But even though John was raised as an ethnic Jew, the fact that Israel had rejected Jesus, had officially embraced the system of the traditions of the fathers that we now know as Talmudism, and had spent the last three years trying to exterminate the church, John treated the Jews as a separate community, both sociologically as well as spiritually. He definitely did not believe in a Judeo-Christian consensus. That did not exist, right? Israel had apostatized. The dating of the book helps to completely dismiss the charge that John was anti-Semitic. Judaism had come to the point where they rejected a person's Jewishness if they embraced Jesus. You're a Christian? Okay, you're no longer a Jew. So there was this bifurcation that had happened between the two communities by this time. Now let me give you a third bit of background information that I think helps to balance this out. John was one of two apostles that were commissioned by Christ to reach the Jews with the gospel. Peter and John were spoken of as being apostles to the circumcision. So this balances out the previous point. Despite the fact that John had experienced enormous persecution from the Jews, he didn't hate them at all. Though he treated them as being under God's curse, he sought to win them to the truth. It was part of his commission as an apostle, and John 20 verse 31 gives the purpose for the whole book, and part of that purpose was so that his fellow countrymen would come to know that Jesus is indeed the Christ, the Son of God, and that they might have life through his name. So he did not write this book to Gentiles, as so many people have assumed. That is an absolutely false assumption. He wrote this to Jews. Okay? Very, very important for understanding this book. And actually, more and more scholars are recognizing this. Some of the study Bibles have a hard time keeping up with things, but even liberals like J. A. T. Robinson have begun to acknowledge the total Jewishness of the audience that he was writing to. So, really, you have to hold two things in tension in order to understand the book. First thing, Israel's apostate. They're under God's curse. Second thing is John is still trying to reach them through the gospel. He loves them. He wants them to trust in Christ. Fourth, the stated purpose of the book in John 20, verse 31, not only shows that Jews were outside of the faith, but shows that this gospel is an evangelistic tool. This is one of the reasons I know some Reformed people object to people handing out gospels of John. but it is a fantastic evangelistic tool. There is these specialized Gospels of John that underline special passages throughout and display the gospel of salvation. It's one of the simplest introductions people can have to the gospel. And in the Greek, it's unlike Luke, super, super easy to read. Fifth, even though there is simplicity to understanding the gospel message of the book, if you want to dig deeper, The Gospel of John is like an onion, revealing layer after layer of sweet and pungent truth. The book is so intricately woven together that people over time have been frustrated. What outline completely captures the book? And there is no one outline. So there's seven outlines. People have said it's there, but it doesn't capture everything. Well, that's because each one of these outlines are layers upon layers. They are not mutually exclusive. And I'm going to give you six of those, and then I'm going to preach through the book based on a seventh one. And without all seven of these outlines, you're not going to get really the flavor for the whole book. This is not in your outlines, by the way. You're going to have to write like mad if you want to get these six ways of outlining the book. First of all, the book outlines very well as a covenant lawsuit against Israel. So that's the first way some people have outlined the book. John Gilmore says, the Gospel of John is structured after legal interests and studded with sustained legal interaction. The New International Dictionary of the New Testament Theology has pretty extensive essays showing how the Gospel of John is a covenant lawsuit that treats Israel as if it is Egypt, as if it is the world, and treats the church as if it is the new Israel. And that makes it a very logical sequence to Luke. We saw last week that Luke is beautifully structured for a defense for an individual being taken to a Jewish court because this is their documentation. They would have to read the gospel. if they're going to prosecute an individual Christian. So it's a beautiful defense of the face within Jewish courts. This is not a defense. This is going on the offense, and it's Heaven's Court bringing a covenant lawsuit against Israel and saying, without repentance, you're going to be wiped off the face of the map. And Revelation, by the way, builds upon the Gospel of John and explicitly says so. This covenant lawsuit is then expanded upon in Revelation. So that's one way of outlining the book. Second, a couple of books have been written to show what they call echoes of Exodus within the Gospel of John. And I've developed a three-page outline based upon those echoes that some of these books give. If you want it, I've got, I may put that up on the web, I'll see. But it shows how Exodus stands behind the gospel, how Jesus is God's glory cloud, tabernacling among men, and calling Israel out of Egypt, Egypt representing apostate Judaism, and into the promised land. So that's another thematic layer that you find in the book. There are multiple chiastic structures in the book that connect it together. And I did not take the time to look at every chapter and how this structuring works, but the ones that I saw are just incredibly beautiful. So there are some scholars out there who have said, this is an incredibly intricately linked together book that's almost as complicated in its structure as we saw the book of Revelation is. Very, very rich. Fourth, it's shown that every chapter of this book follows the lectionary readings that happened every Sabbath in the Jewish synagogues through the years. So the sequence in John shows the sequence in the lectionary readings. When I first discovered that about 20 years ago, It's like, wow, the book opens up like crazy when you see the Old Testament background to each section of the book of Revelation. So that's another way of looking through the whole book. What's the Old Testament connections that John is trying to bring out? And it really is amazingly obvious once you see the connections that the Jews probably would have recognized because that was their lectionary. Very, very rich. Fifth, others have simply traced the way the festivals of Israel, so they just show how John, it's not completely structured that way, but how John is doing this weaving, and it is kind of a beautiful weaving of the festivals thematically through the book. And then six, you can also show how every chapter is designed to show Jesus to be the Christ, the Son of God. Well, that's not surprising, because John said that was part of his purpose, right? John 20, verse 31. The seven I am statements are just amazing illustrations of why Jesus is Yehovah God. I am, in the Hebrew, is the root of the name Yehovah, and I wish I had time to get into that. I'm not even going to cover it at all this morning. But that, and the seven signs, and there's other structural things that show every single chapter Jesus is the Son of God. Really, really wonderful. And then seventh, several scholars have shown how John wove the whole book around the tabernacle of Moses and its furniture. Now I puzzled, how in the world do I go through the books? I pretty much flipped a coin and decided I'm gonna go with this seventh outline and just give you at least one facet of John's theology by using this outline of Moses and the furniture. Okay, the passage I read just before the sermon declares Christ's body to be the temple. Now that's just one of many, many places where John does that. Chapter 1, right off the bat, he uses a word used in Exodus, in the Septuagintal translation, of the tabernacle, and says that God was tabernacling with man. And I want you to imagine that you were an Israelite in the time of Moses, And you, your alarm clock went off, and you got up in the morning, and you opened up the flap. What's the first thing that you see? Because all of the tents are facing toward the tabernacle, you see the tabernacle every single day of your life. And the most prominent feature of that tabernacle was this massive pillar. It's a cloud that goes up from the Holy of Holies right up into the heavens. It's fiery bright red. It's a cloud of fire at nighttime, and it's bright white during the daytime. So Exodus 40 says for 40 years, 24 hours, 7 days a week, that fiery cloud was in their midst as a testimony that God was in their midst. It was casting light in their whole community. Now this is where John starts this gospel. God tabernacling with man with the brightness of His glory. He doesn't wait make you wait till you get to the end of the book to discover. Oh Jesus is is God He doesn't have any problem with spoilers. He right off verse 1 He tells you the conclusion in the beginning was the Word and the Word was with God and the Word was God and then it goes on to say that God the Word came down to the earth and and lived among men. And the words that describe that are all allusions to the tabernacle and the glory cloud in the wilderness. And I'll just give you some samples. The word light occurs in verses four, five, seven, eight, and nine. The words glory, tabernacle, fullness, testimony, and witness, they all hark back to that first tabernacle. Look at verse 14, for example. And the word became flesh and dwelt among us, and literally the Greek is tabernacled among us. One version has pitched his tent among us, okay, so tabernacled among us, and we beheld his glory. The glory is of the only begotten of the Father, full of grace and truth. So John starts by describing God setting up a brand new tabernacle or temple And that temple was Christ. And the glory cloud was God the Son come to earth to dwell among men. And the way that John describes that makes you want to fall down and worship, just like in John's communion meditation earlier. He makes you want to fall down and worship, just like the Jewish remnant in the time of Moses that were believers. They wanted, when they saw that glory cloud, it made them want to worship. and bow before their creator God. But certainly this covenant lawsuit is going to make it clear that when Israel rejected Jesus and declared war against Jesus, they were actually rejecting God, and they were being excommunicated. They were being treated as Egypt. So again, there's two other layers that are over top of this layer, and we can't get into all of the layers, but maybe I'll give you hints from time to time on how they connect together. Now, if you were in ancient Israel, you would notice that this tabernacle had a wall around it, and that wall excluded people. But it also had a door that included people. It wasn't enough for an Israelite to camp around that tabernacle and to face that glory cloud. Hebrews tells us that many of those Jews who had seen that glory cloud their whole lives died in unbelief. Okay, they never entered through the door by faith. That's one of the central messages of this book. You must enter the door by faith. You must be united to Christ by faith. Anyway, the same unbelief that happened in the time of Moses happened in the time of John. Though Jesus tabernacled among men as the light of men, verse 5 says, the darkness did not comprehend it. Verse 10 says, He was in the world and the world was made through Him and the world did not know Him. So it's not enough to know about Jesus, we need to know Him experientially, be united to Him by faith. And so verses 11 through 13 say this. He came to his own, and his own did not receive him. But as many as received him, to them he gave the right to become the children of God, even to those who believe in his name, who were born not of blood, nor of the will of the flesh, nor the will of man, but of God." So the whole chapter speaks of God sovereignly seeking a people, setting them apart, giving them faith, and they enter into union with Christ by faith. But, and here's the third point. The moment you do enter that tabernacle, you are confronted with the altar for sacrifices. You're confronted with the realization that even though you have faith, in other words, you've gone through the door, you still need the sacrificial work of Christ in your life. The closer you get to the holiness of God, the more that holiness makes you tremble and realize how unholy you are. And this is where Jesus represents the tabernacle sacrifices. Look at John 1 verse 29. The next day John sees Jesus coming toward him and said, Behold the Lamb of God who takes away the sin of the world. Verse 36 says, And looking at Jesus as he walked, he said, Behold the Lamb of God. Jesus was represented by the sacrifice, the priest, and the altar all rolled up into one. In fact, if you look at verse 51, he alludes to an earlier altar and an earlier house of God that was at the time of Jacob in Genesis. Take a look at verse 51. And he said to him, most assuredly I say to you, hereafter you shall see heaven open and the angels of God ascending and descending upon the Son of Man. Now if you know your Old Testament very well, you know this is exactly what happened to Jacob in Genesis chapter 28. He's camping, he sleeps on the ground, uses a stone as his pillow, and he's got this dream of the angels ascending and descending. And Jacob then treats that rock as both house of God and the altar all in one. So he offers a sacrifice on the stone, and he says, this stone which I have set as a pillar shall be God's house, and of all that you give me, I will surely give a tenth to you. So the stone was the house of God, it was the altar of God, it was the only staircase to God, so to speak. So the whole section revolves around the altar as being the approach to God. Now here is an important point. Jews did not just go to that altar one time when they first got saved. Every time they needed something, they needed guidance, or they needed to be restored to the Lord, every time they needed something, they approached the altar. It represents repentance and cleansing. The tabernacle was arranged in such a way that it was impossible to approach God for any reason without first going past the brazen altar. We're saved through Christ's sacrifice, but every return visit to the tabernacle, we must live by the power of the cross. Well, the next stop that you would make as you walked into the tabernacle was the huge brazen laver of water. So it was this bronze container, had spigots all around it that you could turn on for cleansing. Ceremonies stood up on a pedestal. And I think the order here is significant. You couldn't get to this place of cleansing and refreshing without first passing by the brazen altar that we just talked about. And Galatians tells us why. It's symbolic why. Galatians 3, 13 through 14 says that the spirit, represented by the water, could not be given without the sacrifice of Christ, represented by the altar. Okay, so even for believers, there is no cleansing, no refreshment or empowerment apart from forgiveness. This is a routine that we have to go through all of our lives. We go to Christ for forgiveness, then we go to the Holy Spirit for His empowering. Now in the Old Testament there were a large number of baptisms or washings of purification, pretty much every time you sinned there needed to be a purification. All of them pointed to the work of the Holy Spirit, and chapters 2 through 3 are preoccupied with the fulfillment of these types. Let me just give you some sample examples of this purification. Chapter 2, verse 6, now there were set there six water pots of stone, according to the manner of purification of the Jews, containing 20 or 30 gallons apiece. Jesus said to them, fill the water pots with water, and they filled them up to the brim. Now, since this is on another layer describing the signs pointing to Christ, he could have just said, you know, it's turning water into wine. He could have just said water pots. But no, he wants to connect it to the ceremonial law, so he says they're pots for the ceremonial purification. Let me give you some other examples. In verses 13 through 22, we've got the familiar cleansing of the temple that I read earlier. Then in chapter 3, verse 5, Christ says, Most assuredly, I say to you, unless one is born of water and the Spirit, he cannot enter the kingdom of God. Then look at chapter 3, verses 22 through 26. After these things, Jesus and his disciples came into the land of Judea, and there he remained with them and baptized. Now John also was baptizing in Anon near Salem, because there was much water there. And they came and were baptized, for John had not yet been thrown into prison. Then there arose a dispute between some of John's disciples and the Jews about purification. And they came to John and said to him, Rabbi, He who was with you beyond the Jordan to whom you have testified behold he is baptizing and all are coming to him Anyway, I won't go on but there's a lot of references to purification in these chapters Well, all of that represents the new life the cleansing by the Holy Spirit. There are obviously other themes, that's why there's multiple layers, right? But the changing power of the Spirit is clear. Before you can enter into the holy place, in order to have communion with God, you must first of all come through the door, past the altar, past the empowerment of the Holy Spirit, you know, the cleansing of water. So, perhaps you've grieved the Holy Spirit and you long for the empowering and the comfort of the Holy Spirit in your life. What you have to do is you have to backtrack and go back to the altar. And then you go to the Spirit. Before we can find the illumination of the candlestick or the nourishment of the table, we have to first get right with God. So, the point is, don't ever justify or rationalize your sins. It'll hinder your coming close to God's glory cloud. Now let's move on to the next part of the tabernacle, which is the table of showbread that is loaded with 12 cakes of bread and chalices of wine, which represent nourishment. And this is all of chapters four through six. Now you might think that chapter four is just continuing the same water theme, but in chapter four, it's not water for purification, it's water for drinking. So it is a change. Subject its nourishment. So look at verse 14, for example Whoever drinks of the water that I shall give him will never thirst But the water that I shall give him will become in him a fountain of water springing up into everlasting life verse 32 I have food to eat of which you do not know and There's mention of wine in verse 46. Story of chapter 5 occurs on feast day. Whole of chapter 6 is preoccupied with Christ as the living bread, the need for the disciples to eat his flesh, to drink his blood. Chapter 7 is laid in the context of the Feast of Tabernacles. Chapter 7 verse 37, if anyone thirsts, Let him come to me and drink. He who believes in me, as the scripture has said, out of his heart will flow rivers of living water. I don't need to give other examples. I think you get the point there. All of this points to spiritual nourishment, growth, fellowship, feeding at God's table. Now, if you take a look at the illustration on the top of your page, you will notice that the table of showbread is in the holy place. Okay communion Was a time of special closeness to god and the priests ate of the 12 loaves drank of the wine while the the the others ate outside Interestingly revelation says we all now can come not just where the priests ate But right into the holy of the holies eating the hidden manna pretty amazing but in any case Communion is talking about the special presence. In fact, the name showbread, the original meaning, pretty clear if you know old English, but here is the literal rendering of showbread. It is the bread of your presence. The bread of your presence. Jesus was pointing out that his work is intended to usher us into his presence and in his presence is satisfaction and fullness of joy. Now, if you've never experienced that kind of fellowship with God, or that kind of joy, or that sense of His presence, you may want to retrace your steps and see where you have gone wrong. There were many disciples who abandoned Christ in chapter 6. There was something wrong with their faith. Maybe they had bypassed the brazen altar, or, you know, where you're dying to self, you're picking up your cross to follow Christ, or they had bypassed the power of the Spirit in the labor. Fellowship, communion, nourishment, strengthening is the heritage of all God's people, but the put onto your outline there is a concrete way to at least grasp one facet of the theology of John. There's a logical order of approach to God. So even though this is a covenant lawsuit declaring Israel to be about to be judged, which would be on a different layer, where if I was preaching on that I'd say, okay, next year, this is soon going to happen. Written in 1865, the judgment starts to fall in 1866. So even though that's going to John's heart of compassion is reaching out to his fellow Jews, and he's saying, may there be a remnant who believes. He's trying to show them the way into the temple. But you know the same is true of our approach to the candlestick. The next section, which is chapters 8 through 9, is marvelously illustrated by the candlestick. It deals with spiritual illumination by Christ the light. You could not get to that candlestick without first going through the previous furniture. Why do so many Christians lack light and wisdom and guidance? Because they're not in fellowship with God. Okay, and we find the same to be true here in chapters 8 through 9. The concept of His light just pervades that section. In chapter 8, verses 1 through 12, light is used as shin and exposing of sin. And some people say, oh, that kind of light I don't want in my life. It makes me feel really uncomfortable. But hey, if you reject the candlestick convicting you of sin, and you say, no, no, no, I'm hiding that sin in my life. Why is the candlestick going to be giving any other blessings into your life? We accept the candlestick or we don't accept the candlestick. He ends that section by saying, I am the light of the world. He who follows me shall not walk in darkness, but have the light of life. So he's in effect saying, I am the fulfillment of that candlestick imagery. In verses 13 through 20, Christ shines by means of bearing witness. Verses 21 through 29, he shines by conforming to God's will. Verses 30 through 59, shines in order to make us free. Chapter nine, deals with the opening of physical eyes, spiritual eyes. And so right in the middle of healing this blind man of his physical blindness, he says in verse five, I am the light of the world. Chapter nine, then goes on to speak about the spiritual illumination. that Christ can bring, and the total blindness that the Pharisees had. They're in darkness. They claim to be in the light, but they're in utter darkness. So when you are truly in fellowship with Christ, He opens your eyes. He gives you wisdom. He gives you guidance. He directs your steps. And the closer you draw to the Lord, the more the confusion evaporates. The more the ignorance vanishes, so we're not talking about something academic here when those priests were ministering They were not just going through routine rituals. Well, maybe some of them did But they realized the glory cloud is there and his presence changed them and sustained them and guided them now the next section of John which is chapters 10 through 13 and gives all four aspects of Jesus being our mediator. He is our shepherd, our priest, our king, and our servant. And all of those are tightly connected to the temple. So just as God declared himself to be the good shepherd under Moses, Jesus declares himself in chapter 10 to be the good shepherd. And I'm not going to take the time to develop all of the parallels, but chapter 11 presents him as the life giver whose death is being plotted. Of course, the only way he can give us life is by offering himself up in our place as a sacrifice. Chapter 12 presents him as the priest, then as the king. Well, that's what the temple and the tabernacle was, right? It was the throne room of God. And his ongoing intercession, rule, and ministry is intimately tied up with the next two pieces of furniture. The altar of incense stands behind chapters 14 through 16. It represents the prayers of Christ. And by the way, they always took stuff off of that altar, put it into what was a little incense carrier thing, a bowl, and in Revelation chapter 5 verse 8, that golden bowl of incense represents our prayers. So how does our prayers get lit? Well, it's by taking a coal off the altar of Christ's prayers. And so his prayers and our prayers are linked together. Basically, it means that there isn't anything we can do. Jesus said, without me, you can do nothing. He needs to light every aspect of our life. Chapters 14 through 16 talk about how we can approach the throne of God, and he gives a huge amount of teaching about prayer and the indwelling of the Spirit and guidance of the Spirit and boldness. I'll just give you some examples. Chapter 14, verse 13. Whatever you ask in my name that I will do that the Father may be glorified in the Son if you ask anything in my name I will do it and that incredible if you ask anything in my name I will do it You know Ephesians 1 says that we already have a bank account where every time we pray God says you're writing a check on your bank account and it comes down to earth and And that bank account contains all the answers to your prayer that you're going to ask for the rest of your life. And I believe it also contains a whole boatload of other riches that you could have, but you don't have because you're not praying. That's what James says you have not because so the reason that we live like paupers is we have not learned What it means to pray in the holy spirit that is symbolized by that altar of incense in revelation 5 8 the incense That's shared with that altar goes up and it unlocks what otherwise would be totally unlockable. In Revelation 8, 1-6, the incense of praying in the Spirit brings revolutionary changes to the earth. John 14-16 speaks of the privilege of access to the Father At which so few Christians availed themselves and I don't have the time to chapter 14 15 through 31 tells us pray in the power of the Holy Spirit in John 15 1 through 8 He tells us to abide in him if you abide in me and my words abide in you you will ask what you desire It shall be done to you. So he gives all kinds of conditions for effective prayer life Prayer must be a regular part of your life. You probably get tired of Gary telling you, we need to pray, we need to pray. Have you prayed about that? Don't get tired of it. Thank him for those reminders. It is absolutely essential, and as we pray, we can be encouraged that Christ prays along with us, and that the Father always hears Christ's prayers. Praise God. It means we link our prayers with Jesus' prayers. Our prayers are always going to be answered, right? That's what it means to pray in the Holy Spirit. As He guides us in our prayers, it links with Christ's prayers. And the Father always hears Christ's prayers. That's the beautiful thing about it. So that's what the altar of incense teaches us and what these chapters teach us. Now as you keep moving forward, you actually enter into the throne room of God, into the Holy of Holies. Now that was a scary place to go in the Old Testament. High Priest, when he walked into the Holy of Holies, He had a rope tied around his leg that the other priests were holding on to because in case God struck him dead They didn't they're not gonna go in there to retrieve the body so they could just haul the body conveniently out by the rope This was the kind of scary place that it was and the point is Jesus is the only one who ultimately has the holiness to come before God's throne the heavenly Holy of Holies so why are we able to enter boldly into the Holy of Holies and we're united to Christ. Why are we able to be seated with Christ in the heavenlies according to Ephesians? Because we're united with Christ. Why are we able, according to Revelation 2, to smash the nations with Christ's very rod of iron? Because we're united with Christ. When we pray in the Spirit, we are doing with Christ Incredible things with that rod of iron. So anyway, there's so much here that That should be very very encouraging to you christ said no one comes to the father except through me now I I didn't put it in your outlines But I could have actually put in there what hebrews talks about is the curtain being the veil of christ's flesh Even getting into that holy of holies is through christ's flesh. Anyway, chapter 17 is christ's high priestly prayer Where was that prayed? High Priest would pray in the Holy of Holies, okay? So, much could be said about this wonderful prayer, but I want to emphasize the security that we have in His prayers. I've already mentioned the Father always hears His prayers, and that's why we are so secure. Now, if you're If you're not a Calvinist, it's hard to find security in Christ's prayers, because people say, well, Christ prays for everybody, and yet all kinds of people are going to end up in hell. The Father didn't hear Christ's prayers for them. How do I find security? Well, let me tell you something, brothers and sisters, Jesus never prayed for the left. Never has, never will. When he prayed for his enemies at the cross, Father forgive them for they know not what they do. Every one of those that he prayed for were saved. And we've got evidences of that in the New Testament. People say, well, of course Christ prays for everybody, but he denies it in this prayer. He only prays for those whom he's going to shed his blood for and so in verse 9 It says I pray for them. He's talking about his his elect. I pray for them. I do not pray for the world. I I do not pray for the world, but for those whom you have given me, for they are yours, and all mine are yours, and yours are mine, and I am glorified in them." That is as clear a proof of limited atonement, or particular redemption, or definite atonement, whatever you want to label it, as you could possibly have. Because in the Old Testament, the priest always prayed for those for whom the sacrifice was intended, and that's what Jesus is doing here. The sacrifice was not intended for the world. If it was, the whole world would be saved and there would be no hell. Right? So, he prays for the elect, and God protects and keeps the elect. If you desire the security promised in Christ Jesus, then you must be one of those who has put your trust in Jesus. In verse 20, Christ said, I do not pray for these alone, but also for those who will, this is future, who will believe in me through their word. And so chapter 17 is a reference to the high priestly work of Christ in the Holy of Holies. And praise God that Peter had somebody to pray for him, that his faith would not fail. Remember that story? Satan said, you know, that he wanted to sift, and Jesus said, you can sift him. but he promised to pray for him so that his faith would not fail. Praise God that Christ is now in the Holy of Holies, always offering up intercession on our behalf, and his prayers are effective because his sacrifice was effective. The next two chapters, 18 through 19, speak of his sufferings. the offering up of his life to the Father, the sprinkling of the mercy seat with his blood. And you might say, well, actually, the cross doesn't that point to the altar? Well, yeah, it does. All of this furniture, in some senses, happens very, very tightly together. But what was going on is that you would take the Sacrifice the the blood from that sacrifice you would take it into the holy of holies and sprinkle that blood upon the mercy seat and And then the priest would come out and say you're atoned for be at peace. Don't worry. That was that was the idea so That's pretty much what Jesus does. I want to end with the most encouraging section of all. Just as the high priest of old would come out of the Holy of Holies and declare that God had accepted the blood atonement, declare peace to his people, those were the first words from Christ's lips after he had sprinkled his own blood on the mercy seat. So chapter 20, verse 19. Then the same day, at evening, being the first day of the week, when the doors were shut where the disciples were assembled for fear of the Jews, Jesus came and stood in the midst and said to them, Peace be with you. Those were the very words that the high priest would utter when he had come out of the Holy of Holies, took off his garments, put on now lay garments, and spoke to the people. He would say, peace be with you. Hyperpreterists say that didn't happen until 80-70. Absolutely wrong. It happened In the rest of the chapter, he restores his disciples, including Doubting Thomas. In chapter 21, he graciously restores Simon Peter, who had denied him. Okay, and that was the picture that the tabernacle taught. It's restoration to the Father. And that's the ministry of Jesus, as Father of believers. That's a wonderful message. That's a message that ought to change us. The more we recognize the terribleness of our alienation from God, The more we recognize how awful the sins are that we have been saved from, the more we will recognize the wonder of His salvation and of His grace. In fact, we're going to be singing about that wonderful grace of Jesus. We can exult in His incredible plan of salvation. Christ had said earlier, he who is forgiven much will love much. That's a beautiful thing. You might feel like a worm because so many sins that the Lord has exposed. Well, he who is forgiven much will love much. He asked Peter, do you love me? And of course, Peter is filled with love and awe that Jesus would restore him. Three times he had denied Christ, three times Christ restores him. He's filled with love and awe. And you know what the evidence of his love was? Three things, three phrases in this last chapter. Verse 17, feed my sheep. Verses 18 through 19, take up your cross and die to self. And verse 19, follow me. Feed my sheep, pick up your cross and follow me. And those same three things are evidences of your own love, serving others, being willing to lay down your life for Christ and following Christ wherever He leads you. And it's only when we have a restored relationship with God we even have the power to be able to do so. It's only when we have fellowship with God that we are even in the right mind to invite others into the house of God. And that was the passion of John, to invite people into the tabernacle, into union with Jesus. I hear that truly Jesus did many other signs in the presence of his disciples, which are not written in this book, but these are written that you may believe that Jesus is the Christ, the Son of God, and that believing you may have life in his name." By the way, that's how he ends the last book of the Bible. Same author, wrote Revelation. And he pleads with unbelievers not to continue to be outside the camp, outside the temple, excluded from God. Revelation 22, 15, he says, but outside are dogs, and sorcerers, and sexually immoral, and murderers, and idolaters, and whoever loves and practices a lie. But in verse 17, he says, and the spirit and the bride say, come. And let him who hears say, come, and let him who thirsts come, and whoever desires, let him take the water of life freely." So it's my prayer that each and every one of us would enter into God's household provision so richly that we would be strengthened to gladly lay down our lives for our Savior to serve Him and to serve others. May it be so, Lord Jesus. Amen. Father, we thank you for your Word and the challenge that it is to our lives. We have barely scratched the surface of the gospel of John, but I pray that even the gospel that is portrayed in the tabernacle would grip our hearts and make us love you. Receive our praise, our gratitude, our thanksgiving as we sing this final hymn of praise to you. And we pray this in Jesus' name. Amen.