In John chapter 17, verse 9, Jesus says, I am praying for them, his disciples. 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 you to take them out of the world, but that you keep them from the evil one. This is the word of the Lord. And you may be seated. Well, as we wade deeper into Christ's high priestly prayer, I hope that it's dawning on you, as it does on me, the expansive breadth of our Lord's intercession. It's nothing short of breathtaking to see how that he weaves together these threads of God's redemptive purpose that reach all the way back to eternity past and all the way forward to eternity future, to the day of consummation. Christ's prayer then is like an all-encompassing grand tapestry. That's the illustration we've been using. It displays the eternal counsel of the divine will right before us. And as we've seen, everything in Christ's prayer is grounded in the covenant of redemption. Everything that our Lord praise, every request that he makes, every statement grounded in this pre-creation plan that the Son came to fulfill. And so redemption is the work of the Father, the Son, and the Holy Spirit. It is all of the Lord. And that's why the glory of the triune God is the ultimate goal of every declaration that Jesus makes and every petition that he brings before his Father. Now as the prayer advances, the various themes begin coalescing, if you will. The strands progressively intertwine to form a collective picture of God's redemptive purpose. And with God's glory as the major thread that binds all of it together, Christ's prayer affirms that He was sent by the Father to redeem a people corrupted by sin, a people the Father chose to make holy before the foundation of the world. Christ identifies this people in His prayer as those given to Him by the Father. And Jesus redeems this people and gives them eternal life by revealing the father, by manifesting the father's name and proclaiming the father's words. All of this is previous, of course, to the passage we read this morning, but Jesus covers all of this in the opening of his prayer. We also find there that eternal life is knowing the God of life, the true God, the only true God. And knowing God requires a knowledge of his name because his name embodies all that he is and all that he does. And God's name is revealed through his word. That's how we come to know it. Folks, God's word isn't about mere events and commandments and propositions. It's about the God who discloses himself in those historic events and in those commandments and in those propositions. You miss the Bible if you read it just merely with this disconnectedness, not seeing the God behind the history, not seeing the God behind the commandments, not seeing the God behind the propositions. Those things are all told to us to reveal to us who he is. And that's what's important. Not that you know those things, but that you know him. And so we come to know him through those things that he says about himself, both in history and in commandments and propositions. And that's the way we need to read the Bible. We need to read the Bible to know him, not to just gain information, not to just memorize, but to know him. And this is why the word was given to us. And that's why his name was revealed to us. And so in this prayer, we learn that we are kept in God's name. In other words, we are saved and preserved by God himself. Jesus manifests the father's name. He shows us who the father is, the father who chose us and called us out of the world. And we are kept in his name. We are held fast by the revelation of who he is and what he requires of us. And all of this occurs even as we're sanctified by the transforming power of the gospel. We need to hear the gospel all the time. The Puritans used to say, preach the gospel to yourself every day. This is what we need to do. For it is the gospel that brings about the sanctifying work of our Savior in our lives. We are redeemed and we are preserved as we abide in his word. Now, during Christ's earthly ministry, he said he kept his disciples safe in the name, the Father's name. But now that he's returning to heaven, he prays to the Father, Father, keep them in your name that they might be one even as we are one, Jesus says. Now, as we've seen, this isn't an absolute oneness. It's a particular oneness that Christ has outlined for us in his prayer. The Father and the Son are united in the pursuit of God's glory. That's in the prayer. They are united in the proclamation of the divine name. That's in the prayer. And they are united in the revelation of God's word. All of these things are how they are one, how they are presented as one to us in this prayer. And so that's the experience of oneness to which we're called. Listen, we'll never achieve oneness in the body of Christ by simply trying to find things in common with each other. Yes, objectively, we are one because we're all the adopted children of God. But we experience that unity whenever we all live for God's glory, when our eyes are all focused heavenward, when our ears are all attuned to his word. When we're all devoted to God, as the father and son are devoted to one another, that's when we'll truly be one. And that's what we see in the prayer. The father completely devoted to the son, the son completely devoted to the father. They are one in that devotion. May we be one as they are one. Now, as Jesus prays this prayer, of course, he's preparing to finish his work and ascend into heaven. But while he's in the world, he says, he says these things so that his disciples can hear them, things that will fulfill his joy in them. And these things that he says certainly refer to the words of this prayer. We know that he's praying out loud so they can hear him interceding for them. But I think it's more than that. I mean, yes, what could bring us more comfort than to know that Christ is interceding for us, right? And that could bring us joy, great joy, that he is in heaven at the right hand of the Father, constantly interceding for us. But since Jesus has throughout this prayer been emphasizing the fact that he has given the disciples all of the words the father has given to him, then these things that he speaks so that they may have his joy and fullness surely refers to everything Jesus has said in his earthly ministry. What he's talking about is the full revelation of the Father. That's what brings the fullness of his joy to our hearts. Now, last week, I just mentioned very quickly before we closed how that the joy of Christ fulfilled in us can be taken in several ways. The language is just ambiguous enough to take it in several ways, all of which I would say are true and may well all have been implied by our Lord. John is infamous for recording for us things that we should see on multiple levels. And so what do we find from this phrase? Christ's joy will be fulfilled in us. In other words, his joy in us will be complete when he's finished sanctifying us so that he can present us to the Father holy and blameless. Christ's joy in us will be full at that time, His joy for having completed the work in us as He sees us presented to the Father without spot and without blemish, all because of His work. That's one way. But it also may mean that Christ wants us to know the joy that He experienced in His humanity through His obedience to the Father. I mean, his joy was doing the will of the father. And finally, it may refer to the joy that he imparts to us by giving us the words that, as the psalmist says, rejoice the heart. Jesus gives us the words of God, the father. And the psalmist says, it is those words that rejoice the heart. For God's people, the decrees of our Lord are the joy of our heart. And so in each of these senses, however, and I think we can take them all, I think it's quite likely Jesus meant all of these, but for God's people, what we need to understand, then what is common with all three of those views? It's clear that the fullness of joy is in fulfilling God's purpose. That's true. And no matter how you read it, that the fullness of joy is in fulfilling his purpose, the purpose for which we were created. And folks, we were created for God, for his glory. And that was Christ's joy, doing the will of the Father, seeing the Father's purpose realized. You know, in Luke 10, verse 21, Jesus specifically rejoiced at God's electing purpose as he began to see it unfold before him. As he preached the gospel, there were those who were turning away, and then there were others who were coming to him. And so Luke says that in that same hour, he rejoiced in the Holy Spirit and said, you see that he rejoiced and said, I thank you, father, Lord of heaven and earth, that you have hidden these things from the wise and understanding and have revealed them to little children. Yes, Father, for such was your gracious will." Here we have Jesus in his humanity rejoicing over God's electing purpose as he sees it unfold before him as he preaches the gospel. Christ rejoiced at the fulfillment of the Father's will. Well, in any case, Jesus rejoiced always at doing the Father's will. He always did the Father's will joyfully. He never did it begrudgingly. Boy, that really exposes the sinful deficiencies in our attitudes, doesn't it? Jesus always had delight in doing the will of the Father. You know, we may end up obeying, but sometimes we do so reluctantly, don't we? Or am I the only one? No. And sometimes we can obey with resentment in our hearts. God forbid, that should be something for which we confess our sin before Him. There should be no resentment in our hearts for obeying Him. But we're like little children sometimes who are made to eat their vegetables, right? Well, you may make me do it, but you can't make me like it, right? Those of you who have children know what I'm talking about, right? And so what do the children do? They grumble with every bite. They drag it out and take as long as possible. They want to make you as miserable as possible for making them miserable. Is that how we sometimes obey the Lord? Lord, I don't want to do this, but I'm going to do it anyway. Resign myself to it. Don't forget, His Word to us is the joy of our heart. We rejoice at His Word, for His Word is for what? The reason we were created was to fulfill that Word. That's our very purpose. And so, what a contrast we see in our Savior. He rejoiced at doing the Father's will even when it meant going to the cross. Now, yes, I know you may be thinking about that moment of hesitation, one moment of hesitation we find recorded in all of scripture, Jesus in the garden of Gethsemane, where he pours out his heart before the Lord. And he asked, is there some other way that your will may be accomplished? Father, if there is, can I take that path? But what I want you to see, even when we read that prayer, there was never a doubt in Christ's mind, because if the cross is the only path forward for accomplishing the father's will, that's the path he's going to take. And I don't want you to misunderstand me. Christ's delight wasn't in the pain and suffering of the cross, but he did go to the cross for joy. The scripture tells us that. No, His delight was in pleasing the Father, even if it meant suffering. It was a joy to do the Father's will because He and the Father shared perfect divine love. So you see, joy, true joy, biblical joy is knowing God, it's loving God, it's having righteous fellowship with God. The reason Jesus was pleased to do everything the Father commanded him to do, and he did so with joy, was because of his love for the Father, his communion with the Father, his fellowship with the Father. And so as we find in the scripture, Psalm 1611, in your presence, there is fullness of joy. At your right hand, pleasure is forevermore. You know, maybe that is a saying that we need to post on our refrigerators, our dashboards, right? In your presence is the fullness of joy because there we are every day seeking for joy, looking for pleasure. We're looking in all the wrong places. We're seeking in all the wrong places. In your presence, the scripture says, is fullness of joy at your right hand or pleasures forevermore. Psalm 51 reminds us that it is God's gracious salvation that is the source of our joy. Where does our joy come from? From the salvation that he has provided. That's where it comes from. And scripture also says that God himself is the object of our joy. It tells us that we are to rejoice in the Lord. He is the object of our joy. And of course, as Psalm 97 tells us, true joy comes from knowing that our sovereign God reigns over all. Now, that's joy, to know that our God reigns and not a thing occurs that's out from under his sovereign and providential hand. Everything that occurs is moving things forward to his desired end. Folks, biblical joy is so much more than a mere emotion. It's fruit of the Spirit. In other words, it comes to us, it comes to our hearts through the indwelling work of the Holy Spirit. As we noted last week, Joy is so much deeper, so much more abiding than what we think of as happiness. Happiness relies on the pleasantness of our present circumstances, doesn't it? Happiness comes and goes with the changing tides. Happiness is a fair weather friend. And that's not joy. According to scripture, we don't have joy because things are going our way. In fact, It's difficult to find a place in the scripture where someone like the apostle Paul has life going his way. Read about all the things that he has to endure. 2 Corinthians is a good place to go to see a catalog, his resume, if you will, a resume of constant trouble and suffering. And yet, this is the apostle who speaks so much about joy. Remember, we talked about that last week. that over 40 of the occurrences of the word, over a tenth of the occurrences in the entire Bible occur in Paul's writings. A man who suffered greatly and yet rejoiced. No, we don't have joy because things are going our way. We have joy because we are blessed of God. Joy is tied up with our identity as the redeemed of the Lord, as the adopted children of God. And so as Philippians 4 does say, we can rejoice in the Lord always because we are always his children. We can rejoice at all times and in all circumstances because at no time is he not with us. He is with us at all times. And in just a moment, we'll see how Jesus underscores this in his prayer. But the point is simple, for the Christian, joy should be an ever-abiding attribute because we belong to the Lord our God. Our circumstances don't govern our joy because we're in the hands of the sovereign Lord who presides over all circumstances. How can circumstances steal our joy away whenever God is controlling those circumstances? He is our heavenly Father. He has set His love upon us and He's doing what is best for us. Yes, it requires a little maturity. Yes, it requires growing up a bit. Hebrews chapter 12 tells us that. But we should grow up and we should learn to respect and understand and appreciate Whatever it is that God has for us because he is working all things together for good to those who love him and are the called according to his purpose. So we are being kept by the God who is working all things according to the counsel of his will. And that means our joy then rests in the fact that no matter what it is that we're facing, our God is being glorified. His purpose is being realized. And for the Christian, His glory is our good. That's why we can rejoice in the Lord always. Our comfort and our assurance rests with God's faithfulness. Thankfully, not with mine, right? But with His. Thankfully, not with circumstances, but with the God who controls the circumstances. It is in the Lord. Our joy is in the Lord. And so, as Paul tells the Philippians, our Lord will surely finish that work. He is faithful. He's begun a good work in us. He's faithful. He will surely complete it. And that's a reason to rejoice, isn't it? And so, the Christian's joy is Christ's joy. And just as nothing can separate us from the love of Christ, when we abide in his word, there is no circumstance that can extinguish our joy. The joy of the Lord cannot be conquered. And Jesus makes this clear. And so as we look at the flow of his prayer, I'm going to read again, verses 13 through 15. I want you to listen to how the Lord navigates through this section of his prayer. 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 you to take them out of the world but that you keep them from the evil one." Oh, how masterfully Jesus weaves these things together. Christ has spoken God's word to us that we might have the fullness of His joy. And this word that brings us this joy is the word that delivers us from the world. Listen, joy, true joy is being called out of the world for the world is corrupt. And yet, because we no longer belong to this world, Jesus says the world will hate us. I want you to think of that. The word of God that brings us the fullness of Christ's joy also brings us trouble from the world. The same word of truth that generates joy within the hearts of God's people elicits hatred from the world. Folks, our joy doesn't come from the circumstances we experience in this present evil age. And as long as we were of the world, the world loved us. That's what John records for us as Jesus tells his disciples that. I think it's in John 15. Yes, John 15, maybe verse 9 or so, where he tells them, listen, if you were of the world, the world would love you. The world would love you. But as long as we were of the world, we could never have true joy. Fleeting happiness is the best that this world can offer. How ironic this is, that the very thing that delivers us from this corrupt world also elicits from this corrupt world the hatred. So think of that. The very thing that delivers us from this world and brings us Christ's joy elicits the world's hatred at the same time. This is why, folks, that we can be in tribulation and have joy. Because it's true. The very reason we have trouble often and tribulation often. There are some troubles and tribulations that we face just because we're in a world of sin. And then there are those that because we are not like the world. And those situations, though we are not like the world, it's the very word of God that brings us joy, that makes us incompatible with the world. And so, folks, the opposition of the world, the assaults of the evil one, for all of their maliciousness, they cannot rob us of Christ's joy. That's what I want you to see. This joy is invincible. It's unconquerable joy. And so, experiencing the fullness of this joy has nothing to do with our outward circumstances, nothing at all. I mean, notice what Jesus says to the father. I do not ask you to take them out of the world, but that you keep them from the evil one. You see, he's already told us that the same word that brings us joy is what calls us out of the world. And as we were called out of the world, the world will hate us. And yet he says, I'm not asking you to take them out of this world that hates them. I'm asking that you keep them from the evil one. Think of that. Think of what our savior is praying here. And so the point is our joy is not the absence of worldly trouble. It's the power of God that keeps us even in the midst of intense persecution or difficult days or troubled times in scripture. Joy is never conditioned upon the pleasantness of our circumstances. Never. This joy is more powerful than adversity. This joy is more constant than our fluctuating circumstances. This joy is more enduring than our ever-changing situation. Our joy is in the unchanging God. That's why our joy is constant, for he is constant. He is immovable. He is the same yesterday, today, and forever. And so our joy is rooted in his eternal purpose. It is anchored in that inheritance that is kept for us in heaven. That's a common phrase that we find in scripture. We have an inheritance that we don't yet possess. It is kept for us in heaven. It's kept for us there because we're not of this world. Our heart, our treasure is in heaven where the world cannot touch it. Rust can't erode our inheritance. It's in heaven. Moss can't destroy it. It's in heaven. And the combined forces of darkness and the rulers of this world, they can gather together and do all that they can to assault us, but they can never pillage our joy. They can never pillage our inheritance because it is in the heavens. It is untouchable by this world. Our joy is unconquerable. And that's why we have joy even in the midst of suffering. It sounds a lot like what Jesus said in the Sermon on the Mount in Matthew 5, verses 11 and 12. Do you remember that? Blessed are you when others revile you and persecute you and utter all kinds of evil against you falsely on my account. Now, here's our joy. Rejoice and be glad. Rejoice and be glad when? Whenever the persecution ends? No, while they're reviling you, while they're accusing you falsely on my account, rejoice, be glad for great is your reward in heaven. For so they persecuted the prophets who were before you. Folks, we can have joy because we're being persecuted for the cause of Christ. And what Jesus says is we're in good company. We're in good company. So rejoice," he says. Folks, the point is joy looks at the big picture. It looks at the big picture. In 2 Corinthians 7, 4, we find that even in affliction, Paul is filled with comfort and he overflows with joy. Those are his words, filled with comfort and overflowing with joy in the midst of affliction. Why? Because despite all of the messiness of the church at Corinth, God's sanctifying work was evident. God was working in them. The Corinthian church was a mess of a church. You know, of all the books, Corinthians could be listed as a catalog of identifying problems because that's what they were. You read through the book of Corinthians and Paul just goes one after the other, after the other. The church was in complete disarray. And yet Paul says, even in the midst of all of that, even in the midst of what was going on, he says, I'm filled with comfort, I'm overflowing with joy. Why? Because God wasn't finished with them. He wasn't finished with them. In Colossians 1.4, the apostle Paul says, he rejoices in his sufferings for the sake of the church. Listen, as the apostle to the Gentiles, he suffered a lot at the hands of the Jews. But what he's saying to us is not that he was enjoying the pain, not at all. The pain of persecution, yes, that's something we have to endure. But what he was rejoicing over was the accomplishment of God's purpose, even when it meant suffering. Because you see, him going to the Gentiles and preaching the gospel and saying the Messiah had come and the Messiah was for the world and not just for the Jews, And that the people who came to Christ, no matter what their race did not have to come under the bondage of old Testament ceremonial law. And for all of this, the apostle Paul was persecuted heavily by the Jews. But he says, I rejoice. I rejoice because that means the gospel is coming to you, to the Gentiles, you see. His joy wasn't in the pain of the persecution, it was in the accomplishment of God's purpose even when his purpose meant suffering. And so when we suffer, we can rejoice in it because even though the pain isn't pleasant, the pain is having a beneficial effect on us. That's what Scripture says, but the world knows it too, right? You go join a gym and quite often what they'll have plastered there on the wall somewhere is no pain, no gain, right? That's the reason I don't go to the gym. I have enough pain living the Christian life, right? I don't need any more. No. But the whole point is that pain has a pleasant effect, a beneficial effect in its outcome. That's what Hebrews 12 says. We rejoice in tribulation because by it we grow. It furthers our sanctification. And that's what Paul tells us in Romans chapter 5. I love that passage in Romans 5 where he says that we rejoice in the hope of God's glory and in our sufferings. And he goes on to tell us why. We rejoice and in our sufferings as well because God is using our pain to build godly character in us. James 1 verse 2 says much the same thing. We're to count it all joy when we fall into diverse trials and tribulations, troubles of all kinds, because God is using it to perfect us. That's what he said. He's using it to perfect us. Listen, if your child was dying of some dreaded infection, I mean, wouldn't you rejoice at the discovery of an effective treatment even if the treatment was extremely painful? Right? Put it in a proper perspective. You would, wouldn't you? Wouldn't you rejoice at the fact that they discovered something even though it was going to put your child through temporary pain? With joy, you would look beyond that temporal pain for the sake of your child's life. And your child might suffer momentary discomfort, but you will have the joy that he will live. Folks, that's the lesson we're taught in Hebrews chapter 12, verse two. You know the passage where we are told that we are to run our race looking unto Jesus. the perfector and founder of our faith, who for the joy that was set before him endured the cross, who for the joy that was set before him despised the shame, and he is now seated at the right hand of the throne of God. Jesus knew that the Father would keep him even through his suffering and death. He knew that life awaited him beyond the cross. And you know, sometimes we mistake what that joy was that was set before him. That joy that was set before him was the joy of fulfilling the father's redemptive purpose. That's what it was. That joy set before him was accomplishing the eternal purpose of God. He rejoiced in pleasing the father. Folks, we too can have joy because we are kept in his name. That's what Paul says in Colossians 1.11. We are strengthened with God's might that we might endure our circumstances with patience and joy. Notice what he says. We're not just to endure our circumstances, but we are to endure them with patience and joy. Peter says much the same thing in the opening chapter of his first epistle. If we had time, we would read that passage. Maybe you could do it later on your own. Peter tells us that our imperishable, undefiled, unfading inheritance. I love the way he stacks these adjectives on top of each other. He wants you to get the point. Our inheritance is imperishable. It is undefiled. It is unfading. And it is kept for us in heaven, he says. And even now, he says, we're being persecuted for the salvation for which we were appointed. And so Peter says, we rejoice, even though we are grieved at the moment by temporal trials that we have to face. This testing of our faith, he says, is more precious than gold. So there you have the benefit again of the pain. And it will all result, he says, in praise and glory and honor when Christ returns. So have joy. And then I love what Peter says. He says, we haven't seen Jesus with our physical eyes. Now he's, of course he has, but he's talking to people who haven't. So to us, he says, you've never seen Jesus with your physical eyes yet. You love him and you believe in him and you rejoice with joy that is inexpressible and filled with glory. Notice what he says, our overwhelming joy is our blessed hope. One day we will see our Savior face to face. What greater joy could we have than that? And I tell you, when we stand before him, every moment of trouble, every moment of pain will fade away. It will be overwhelmed just by the sight of our Lord and Savior. Peter says, this is a joy beyond words, just like the love that is greater than we could ever measure, according to Ephesians chapter 4, just like the peace of Christ is beyond comprehension, as Philippians 4 tells us. Well, as Peter tells us, the joy of Christ defies expression. There just aren't adequate words. It's beyond words. As we close this morning, let's return to the disciples' situation as they're listening to this prayer. Think of all that we've talked about. The disciples are very sorrowful because Jesus has told them that he's going away. Just a few moments earlier, Christ had told them that if you love me, you would rejoice at my going away because the cross, the resurrection, the ascension is a reason for joy, both for Christ and for us. Remember, his glory is our good. And as Jesus explained, he had to go to prepare a place for them. If he doesn't go, the Holy Spirit won't come. If the Holy Spirit doesn't come, we will never be able to follow because it is the Holy Spirit who applies the work of our Savior to our hearts and brings sanctification to us that we will be made fit for his presence. The Holy Spirit does the work. He's the one who works within us to sanctify us and transform us into Christ's image. And only then will we be acceptable before our holy God. So again, we see here that joy, true joy is rooted in the realization of God's good purpose. God's people rejoice in the accomplishment of his will. Now, did the disciples ever come to understand this? Did they ever experience the fullness of Christ's joy even for a moment in the midst of their suffering? Oh, yes, indeed, they did. We find it very quickly, in fact, after Christ's ascension. In Acts 5, verse 41, we're told that after being beaten by the Jewish leaders for preaching Christ, the disciples rejoiced. Right after being beaten, they went their way rejoicing because they were counted worthy to suffer for the name of our Lord, the very name by which they were being kept. That's our joy. We're being kept by the name, which will also bring to us the trouble and persecution, but we can have joy because that trouble and that persecution cannot separate us from the love of our Savior. We have joy because it cannot touch what is ours in the heavens. This joy, this joy of Christ, this fruit of the spirit, it cannot be crushed. It cannot be extinguished. It cannot be conquered. No tribulation can take it from us. No distress can steal it away. No persecution can overcome it. No famine can starve it out. No danger can vanquish it and no sword can pierce it. Folks, we can have joy even in the midst of momentary grief and pain and suffering because as Paul says in Romans chapter 8, in all these things, through all these things, in spite of all these things, we are more than conquerors through Christ who loved us. This is joy, unexpressible and full of glory. This is Christ's joy that fulfills in us that for which we were created. that for which we were redeemed. Christ's joy that he fulfills in us is an unconquerable joy. And may we live in the experience of that. Keep our minds stayed on him that we might know and experience this joy that is ours. This joy that no one can take from us. And to him be all glory forever and ever. Amen.