We have our Bibles, the Holy Spirit dwelling within our hearts, prayer, and the gifts of the Spirit. What more could we possibly need? Stay tuned. Dr. R.C. Sproul will talk about that next on Renewing Your Mind, Weekend Edition. Welcome to this weekend edition of Renewing Your Mind with author and teacher Dr. R.C. Sproul. Dr. Sproul is also the Senior Minister of Preaching and Teaching at St. Andrews, a Reformed congregation in Sanford, Florida. Living the Christian life is not easy. Living in this fallen world, we're faced with moral and ethical decisions at every turn. We're involved with spiritual warfare, let alone the common miseries of life. But we have God's Word, the Church, and the Holy Spirit living within our hearts. What more could we need? Today on Renewing Your Mind, as we continue our study of the Gospel of John, Dr. Sproul will take us through the high priestly prayer of Jesus to find out. Here's our teacher with today's message. Prayer for the Church. We'll be reading this morning from John chapter 17, beginning at verse 20 and reading through verse 26, which is the end of the chapter. I do not pray for these alone, but also for those who will believe in me through their word, that they all may be one, as you, Father, are in me. and I in you, that they also may be one in us, that the world may believe that you sent me, and the glory which you gave me I have given them, that they may be one just as we are one, I in them and you in me, that they may be made perfect in one, and that the world may know that you have sent me and have loved them as you have loved me. And Father, I desire that they also whom you gave me may be with me where I am, that they may behold my glory which you have given me. For you have loved me before the foundation of the world. O righteous Father, the world has not known you, But I have known you, and these have known that you sent me. And I have declared to them your name, and will declare it, that the love with which you love me may be in them, and I in them. He who has ears to hear the word of God, let them hear it. Last week as we looked at an earlier portion of John 17, we read in verse 19 Jesus' statement, and for their sakes I sanctify myself that they also may be sanctified by the truth. Now I think the only way we can understand this in the fullness of the scope of biblical revelation is to remember that Jesus is preparing to finish the mission that God has given Him to redeem His people. And the language here hearkens us back to the Old Testament to the day of atonement when the animals that were used in that sacrifice of atonement in the Old Testament, before they could be brought in and slain and used in that rite, had to be consecrated. They had to be set apart. And even the priests had to go through ritual cleansing before they could offer the sacrifice. But one of the notes that we see in the New Testament is that Christ is the great High Priest. And He differs from all other priests of Israel in this manner. that not only does he, as the priest, subjectively offer the sacrifice that is necessary for atonement, but that sacrifice that he offers is himself, so that Christ is both the subject and the object of his high priestly work. And so even as in the Old Testament those animals that were prepared for the sacrifice had to be sanctified, so our high priest sanctifies himself, consecrates himself for that task that lies ahead of him on the morrow. And then he continues in verse 20. Here in verse 20, Jesus says, I do not pray for these alone. Now remember that just a few moments earlier, Jesus had been restrictive in his intercession. praying for His disciples, praying for those whom the Father had given Him. And He said He did not pray for the world, but for those whom the Father had given Him. But now, even though He restricts His intercession for those whom the Father had given Him, now He broadens that to include others, not of course the world, but He's still interceding for believers. And this is a special text and should be a special text for every Christian. I'll sometimes say to my students, tell me where in the Bible Jesus prays for you? And the answer is right here. if it is that you are a believer. Because on this occasion, Jesus doesn't just pray for those who are right there gathered who are His, but He prays for all of those who will be brought to faith through the ministry and the testimony of His apostolic band that He is now sending into the world. And any person here in this place today who is a Christian is a Christian because of the fidelity of the apostolic community in broadcasting the teaching of Christ and bringing it to the world and coming down even now to our own generation. So in a very real sense, you who are a believer were in the mind of Jesus on that day, on that night when He prayed this prayer of intercession. And it gives us a foretaste. of His ongoing ministry of intercession at the right hand of the Father, and we can know that He is interceding for us daily. You know, sometimes we are somewhat superficial with each other. You tell me you have a problem, I say, I'll pray for you, and then I forget. Or I ask you to pray for me, and you say, okay, I will, and then you forget. It slips from your mind. And we are not always as diligent as we should be in intercession for others. But we also have known people that have manifested that they are prayer warriors. When I was in college, I met two of them. Shortly after my conversion, I had a friend that was a member of the Wesleyan Methodist Church, and he took me to visit this dear, beloved woman who lived in a trailer by herself, and she was known as simply as Sister Dieter. And I hadn't been a Christian for more than four weeks, but my friend took me to her trailer and introduced me to her. And she said, You need to plant a spiritual stake in the ground, and let that stake always remind you of what Christ has done in the saving of your soul. Here I am, decades later, remembering her admonition, and then she began to pray like I'd never heard anybody pray in my life. and how much I appreciated that that woman prayed for me. And also, in the town where I went to college, we had a retired doctor who had been a medical missionary for over 40 years, and he was now retired, and in his 80s, he was infirm, he couldn't practice medicine, he could do nothing of any strenuous physical sort, but he still went to work every morning and worked every single day, except Sunday, for eight hours. And his labor was prayer. He got on his knees and prayed every single day for eight hours. He says, I can't do anything else, but I can still pray. Now, We would go to Dr. Jameson with our concerns because we believe that the fervent effectual prayer of a righteous man avails much. And to know that you got on Dr. Jameson's prayer list was one of the greatest comforts and encouragements that a young student could have. But the assurance, the comfort, the consolation, and the encouragement that the prayers of Sister Deter and of Dr. Jamison had in my life pale into insignificance when we think of the intercession of our Lord Himself. And if he would have just prayed that once, and only that once, I would have nothing but praise for him for the rest of my life, that he would pray for me in that circumstance. But beloved, he doesn't just pray that once. He continues to pray in your behalf and in my behalf. I don't think we could stand life in the kingdom and in the trenches of the kingdom without that intercession. So I do not pray for these alone. but also for those who will believe in me through their word, that they all may be one, as you, Father, are in me and I in you, that they also may be one in us, that the world may believe that you sent me. And the glory which you gave me I've given them. that they may be one just as we are one, I in them, you in me, they may be made perfect in one, and that the world may know that you have sent me and have loved them as you have loved me." This is loaded. We keep coming back to this petition that Jesus makes in the upper room, that he prays earnestly for the unity of his people. And I've pointed out already that there's a very real sense in which that's already been fulfilled. We express our confidence in the belief of the communion of saints. Every person who is a Christian is in Christ, and Christ is in that person. And if you are in Christ, and I am in Christ, already there is a real transcendent unity that exists between me and you by virtue of our common unity in Christ. However, that common unity is something that is called to spill over into the external world. Not necessarily into organizational unity, but there is a bond that brings the people of God together, even though we may differ on this point and on that point, there is something that transcends all of those differences that should be evident to the world. If you ever read C.S. Lewis, When he talks about his conversion experience in his essay that he wrote as part of the introduction to the translation on the incarnation, he said in that book that as a student He would peruse the writings of Christians of history. He would read Thomas. He would read Luther. He would read Thomas a Kempis. And he recognized that all of these people had certain nuances of differences among themselves and between themselves. But he said, I couldn't get over that oneness that kept coming through their testimony of the excellence of Christ. of the truth of the gospel. And that was evident through their lives, despite their differences, that central unity of truth and devotion and mission comes across. The unity that Jesus is praying for is one that people ought to be able to see. They ought to be able to see the love and the concern and the compassion that we have one for another. It's not just pious advice that we are called to rejoice with those who rejoice and to weep with those who weep because we have been knit together in the bond that transcends any human association. He says, that they may know that you have sent me and that they may know that you have loved them as you have loved me. The great thing about God in his tender mercy is that he has an incredible capacity to love the unlovely. How do I know that? Because he knows every ugly part of my soul and of my life and he loves me. How can that be? I don't think we can separate these ideas because we always have to understand that the love that he has for us is not because we are inherently lovable. He loves us in the Son And the same love that He pours out to His Son, He pours out to those who are in the Son. That's why I can't give any reason why God would ever save me except for the love that He has for the Son. And so Jesus prays for those that they may know that same love in them that the Father has for him. Now he goes on and says in verse 24, Father, I desire that they also whom you gave me may be with me. Wow. Not only that we may be in him, but that we may be with Him. There's no place in the world I want to be more than in the presence of Christ. There is no greater companion. There is no more marvelous presence than His. And this is His request to the Father. Father, I'm praying that where I am These who I'm praying for, remember He's not just praying for the disciples now, He's praying for you, He's praying for me, and He's saying about you, He's asking the Father that you may be with Christ. The greatest benefit of Christianity is not the forgiveness of sins. That's simply a means to an end, not justification. That's only a means to an end. The greatest benefit that we have is access into the presence of God, that we can be in the immediate presence of Jesus, that where He is, we can be right with Him. And then listen to what He says, that they may be with Me. Why? Why does He want us to be with Him? that they might behold my glory. You know, one of the books I've written that probably sold less than any other, I wrote it anonymously, is The Glory of Christ. And yet, I don't think I enjoyed writing any book as much as I enjoyed that, because what I did in that particular book was that I went through the life of Jesus, where for the most part, His glory is hidden from earthly sight. For the most part, part of His humiliation is the cloaking of his majesty. And yet there are those vignettes, those moments in the life and ministry of Jesus where his glory breaks through the veil and shines upon those who are present. Obviously the most clear example of that was at the Mount of Transfiguration where in the very presence of Peter, James, and John, there he became transfigured in their midst and they were on their faces. and they wrote later of having beheld the glory of Christ. What a glorious experience that was for me to just concentrate my attention on those momentary vignettes of the shining of the glory of Jesus in his earthly sojourn, which were only brief moments of the glory that awaits his disciples in the consummation of the kingdom where we enter into the new heaven and we behold the glory of Christ. Jonathan Edwards is often criticized as a dour, hellfire, and brimstone preacher, but somebody a few years ago did a study of his works and said that the two words that occur most frequently in Edwards' writings are the words, sweetness and excellence, because this man was intoxicated, he was consumed by the sweetness of the glory of Christ. And when he wrote so earnestly about religious affections, about the inclination of the soul and of the heart to the things of Christ, he was describing the natural response, indeed a supernatural response, of the believer, who because of your love for Jesus, Nothing will satisfy you more in all of your experience than to behold the unveiled glory of Christ. Nothing more sweet, nothing more excellent than that. And it's virtually a fait accompli because of our Lord's intercession. I want them to be with me, Jesus said, so that they can see my glory. Not for a moment like on the Mount of Transfiguration, not for a few minutes outside the plains of Bethlehem when the heavens shone with the glory of God, but for all eternity they may gaze upon my glory. That's the end for which we were made, beloved. To enjoy the sweetness of that vision forever. People will save up money to go to a rock concert so that they can see some celebrities for an hour or two, or go see their favorite professional athletes in action. But make your reservation now. for glory, to see Him as He is. Finally, you loved me before the foundation of the world, O righteous Father. The world has not known you, but I have known you. And these have known that you sent me. I have declared to them your name and will declare it that the love with which you love me may be in them, and I in them." Yes, we're called to participate in the death of Christ, in the afflictions of Christ, in the humiliation of Christ without which we'll never share in His glory, we'll never share in His exaltation. but for us to be faithful disciples in this world, to fulfill the mission that he has given to us and to the church, we need to be encouraged by his constant prayer for his presence in our lives and his love that is shed abroad in our hearts. These things are not to be isolated virtues, but these are things that we need to fulfill the mission that He has given to us. As the Good Shepherd, our Lord and Savior Jesus Christ willingly laid down His life on the cross for the sake of His sheep. All of history revolves around this defining event, so we must strive to understand its significance. As a Christian, you can say, Jesus died for me. But what does that actually entail? How well do you know what actually happened on the cross and what Christ achieved for you? To help you have a deeper understanding of Christ's atonement, we're offering the entire six-part CD series, The Cross of Christ, for a gift of any amount. To reserve your copy, call our toll-free number 1-800-435-4343. Again, that's 800-435-4343. Or visit rymoffer.com. That's R-Y-M as in renewing your mind, and the word offer.com. That web address is for this week's special offer only. In the Cross of Christ series, Dr. Sproul discusses the saving work of the Son of God. Unfolding the drama of redemption revealed in the Old Testament, Dr. Sproul highlights humanity's great need for salvation and explains how the cross meets that need. This is an excellent resource for Christians and non-Christians. Again, the Cross of Christ CD series is available for a donation of any amount today. To reserve your copy, call 1-800-435-4343. Again, that's 800-435-4343. or visit rymoffer.com. That's R-Y-M as in renewing your mind, and the word offer.com. That's all the time we have for this edition of Renewing Your Mind. Thank you for listening. Join us again next weekend as Dr. Sproul continues to take us through the Gospel of John. Until then, join us on Facebook at Facebook.com slash Ligonier. You're listening to Renewing Your Mind Weekend Edition, the listener-supported radio outreach of Ligonier Ministries in Orlando, Florida.