In this sermon, the preacher focuses on John chapter 17 and the deep love and consideration Jesus has for his disciples. The preacher mentions that Jesus mentions his disciples seven times in this chapter, emphasizing their importance to him. Jesus speaks of his authority over all flesh and his purpose of giving eternal life to those given to him by the Father. The preacher highlights the significance of Jesus' words as he stands on the last night before his crucifixion, showing the depth of his love for his disciples.

Well, I was waiting for it, but it didn't come, the menu at Augustine, so you'll just have to go by faith. You don't know whether it's Chinese or buns. Very good. Let us turn, please, this evening, if you will, to our chapter. And once more, I would like to read it through with you. And I hope we may catch something of the breathings of the Savior as He stood with His own that faithful night so long ago. It's on chapter 17. These words begged Jesus and lifted up His eyes to heaven and said, Father, the hour has come. Glorify Thy Son, that Thy Son also may glorify Thee, as Thou hast given Him power over all flesh, that He should give eternal life to as many as Thou hast given Him. And this is life eternal, that they might know Thee, the only true God, and Jesus Christ, whom Thou hast sent. I have glorified Thee on the earth. I have finished the work which Thou gavest me to do. And now, O Father, glorify Thou me with Thine own self, with the glory which I had with Thee before the world was. I have manifested Thine aim unto the men which Thou gavest me out of the world. Thine they were, and Thou gavest them me, and they have kept Thy word. Now they have known that all things whatsoever Thou hast given me are of Thee. For I have given unto them the words which Thou gavest me, and they have received them, and have known surely that I came out from Thee, and they have believed that Thou didst send me. I pray for them. I pray not for the world, but for them which Thou hast given me, for they are Thine, and all mine are Thine, and Thine are mine, and I am glorified in them. And now I am no more in the world, but these are in the world, and I come to Thee. Holy Father, keep through Thine own name those whom Thou hast given me, that they may be one as we are. While I was with them in the world, I kept them in Thy name. Those that Thou gavest me, I have kept. None of them is lost, but the son of perdition, that the scripture might be fulfilled. And now come I to Thee. These things I speak in the world, that they might have my joy fulfilled in themselves. I have given them Thy word, and the world hath hated them, because they are not of the world, even as I am not of the world. I pray not that Thou shouldst take them out of the world, but that Thou shouldst keep them from the evil. They are not of the world, even as I am not of the world. Sanctify them through Thy truth. Thy word is truth. As Thou hast sent me into the world, even so have I also sent them into the world. And for their sakes I sanctify myself, that they also might be sanctified through the truth. Neither pray I for these alone, but for them also which shall believe on me through their word, that they all may be one, as Thou, Father, art in me, and I in Thee, that they also may be one in us, that the world may believe that Thou hast sent me. And the glory which Thou gavest me I have given them, that they may be one, even as we are one. I in them, and Thou in me, that they may be made perfect in one, and that the world may know that Thou hast sent me, and hast loved them as Thou hast loved me. Father, I will that they also whom Thou hast given me be with me, for I am, that they may behold my glory which Thou hast given me, for Thou lovest me before the foundation of the world. O Righteous Father, the world hath not known Thee, but I have known Thee, and these have known that Thou hast sent me. And I have declared unto them Thy name, and will declare it, that the love wherewith Thou hast loved me may be in them, and I in them. It is very difficult to find a passage of Scripture, even by divine inspiration, comparable with this one, which was the Lord's prayer on the night of his betrayal, the night of his arrest. And I was thinking today that when we come into the presence of God to pray, there is that which lies closest to our heart, that which we not only express, but it kind of bursts out from us because it is of the greatest importance to us. And perhaps you have noticed that there are different things which our Lord repeats in this prayer, and that which was closest to his heart, evidently, were these of whom he makes mention seven times in this prayer. It isn't all that long, but it is deeply fraught with some of the things that lay dearest to his heart. And what I want to notice with you tonight, I think some of you were expecting, because of what I said last night, that we were going to take up the various glories of chapter 17 tonight. But I'm going to leave that until tomorrow night, because, you see, I think, I don't know, I have no inside information on this, but I thought maybe we'd have the choir here tomorrow night, so we'd have more to talk to, you understand. That appears to be the attracting body here, I notice, if my numerical computations are correct, at least it appears that way from here. No, but I did want to close our meditations on John 17, not having exhausted it, not by a long way, but with the theme of glory, and the various kinds of glory which are mentioned here in chapter 17. I said to you last evening that this is one of the most difficult, if not the most difficult word to define, as we have it found in chapter 17, as well as elsewhere in the scriptures of truth. But did you notice while we were reading that seven times in this chapter, the Lord repeats the statement, starting off with verse 2, speaking of his own, he speaks about those that thou hast given me, he says, or thou hast given him, and then again in verse 6, twice in verse 6, he speaks about the men that thou gavest me out of the world, and thine they were, and thou gavest them me, and they have kept thy word. Now, seven times in the chapter, you will discover the Lord mentions his own as those who had been given to him, those whom the Father had bestowed upon him, those who were the nearest to his heart, and here he is on the last night of his earthly pilgrimage here, before he goes to the cross, or even before he goes into Gethsemane, and these are they of whom he has the deepest thoughts and the greatest consideration, and these are they whom he mentions seven times in this chapter. Now, I want to look at briefly some of the things which we may glean from these seven times which our Lord speaks of there. We have noticed before, and we will not repeat on this, from verse 2, that he is speaking about his authority, his universal and eternal authority over all flesh, and the purpose of that is, as stated here, that he should give eternal life to as many as thou hast given him. Now, that's the first time he mentions his disciples as having been given to him by the Father, and I say to you again, the very fact that he mentioned this characteristic of his disciples, this feature about them, seven times in the last night of his life, and the only really long prayer, if we may consider it to be long, that we have extant of the Lord when he was here, the very fact that he does this draws my attention. It attracts me immediately, and I look to these occasions to see what I may find, what is characteristic about these, in addition to the fact that these are they whom the Father had given to him. He cherishes them very dearly, they lie very close to his heart. He could have been occupying with other things yet to come. He could have been occupying with the betrayal that has already taken place. Remember he said in John chapter 6, when they said, Thou speakest of plainly, and speakest no parables, now we know for sure that thou art the Christ that shall come into the world. And he said, Do you believe now? But do I not know that I who have chosen you, that one of you is a devil? This spake he of Judas Iscariot, for it was he who was to betray him. But Judas is God. He has warned Peter regarding the trial that was yet to come, the supreme test that was to be made upon them all, and it is also stated before this that he has prayed specifically for Peter. But as he stands on the edge of the garden, that mysterious garden, those difficult to understand, for the depth of them prayers that he uttered in the garden, as he's looking forward to the cross, the shame, the disgrace that is going to befall him, which he has enumerated to his disciples on those various occasions already mentioned, and in which he has added detail after detail, now it's drawn so close to him when he has said, Father, the hour has come. But still, still, lying very close and very deeply in his affections, are these his disciples. Did he not spend all night in prayer in Mark's Gospel, chapter 3, before he made the decision as to whom he would choose to be his disciples? And it seems from the very outset, the very beginning of his relationship with these disciples, he has had them very much in his concern. He sent out ten on one time, you remember, and another time, you remember, he sent out seventy, and they came back rejoicing and so on, you recall that in Luke's Gospel, chapter 10. But these, these are very special to him, and while they are not the only ones that are included in this prayer, I feel very deeply that they have a very special place in the Master, because of the situation, because of what is lying before him, because of what he knows is going to happen, and because he could anticipate already in the sensitivity of his heart, and in the quivering of his flesh, what he was about to pass through, and yet, seven times, he speaks about his disciples as those whom the Father had given to him. So you see how deeply embedded they were in his heart. You can see what a very, very close place he has given to them. And this is before he leaves the eight and takes the three into the garden. So he is including them all when he makes these comments, and the first thing about the fact that they had been given to him, he says, was that he should give them eternal life, and that eternal life was to be their unending consideration for all the ages yet unborn, and that was that they should know God. He says to his Father that they might know thee, thee, the only true God, and that they might know Jesus Christ whom thou hast sent. Now, watch that expression, because it comes up three or four times in this chapter, and as I've already suggested to you, it comes up thirty-six times in the Gospels by John. And even now, he's going to say it over and over and over again. So he says, I have given to them, and thou hast given them to me, that I might give to them eternal life, that they might know thee. And I did suggest to you the other evening, I believe, that this is the first and prime object and purpose for which God has blessed us with eternal life, that we might know God. And not only that we might know God, but he says here, and Jesus Christ whom thou hast sent. Very important to him. He keeps it always before his heart that he was the sent servant steward. So that is the first thing he says about these whom the Father had given to him. And then we come down to verse six, and he says, I have manifested thy name, and we noticed this last evening, unto the men which thou gavest me out of the world. This is an additional expression now that he uses regarding these disciples. The Father gave them to him, and he took them out of the world in order to give them to his steward son. And he says here, in this matter, he says, Thine they were. I was reading again this afternoon, in John chapter six, those difficult passages at times to understand. Remember, our Lord said, No man can come unto me except the Father draw him, but him that cometh to me I will know I is cast out. Remember, he says, Everyone that has heard and learned of the Father comes to me, and no one can come except the Father draw him. Now he is saying, Thine they were. There had been a work already by the Father in the hearts of the disciples before he turned them over as a very specific and special trust to his son. He says, Thine they were. And that was the preparation for them coming into this close contact, and this very constant and deep experience of walking with the Master those three years. They were Thine, he said, and thou gavest them me. You see the connection, you see what is behind this. They were the Father's, and of course they would always be the Father's in a certain sense, but the Father has entrusted them to his son. He has taken that which was of his own, and he has given them into the hands of his son. And then we see as we go down the chapter, the son in turn turns them back into the safekeeping of the Father. And this close relationship of the Father with the Son is going to come out tomorrow in our study regarding our Lord and ourselves, and there is a distinct transferable glory in that matter. All right, we come down to verse 9. I pray for them. I pray not for the worlds, but for them which thou hast given me, for they are Thine. Again you will see that the ties that bound them together expressed as we noticed in our first study of this chapter when he said, Father, the hour has come. To this point we have come together. To this point we come again as he stands here on the edge of the garden, and he says, Thine they were, I am praying for them, for they are Thine. That which is Thine is of greatest importance to me. And he says, I don't pray for the worlds, but I am praying for them which thou hast given me, for they are Thine, and all mine are Thine, and Thine are mine. That's going to explain something to us when we come down to that transferable glory. And I am glorified in them. Why was he glorified in them? Because, he says himself, they had believed that the Father had sent him. This was very, very important to the Lord. Let me underline it. Thirty-six times in the Gospel by John, he mentions over and over and over and over again that he was sent of the Father. He did not come of himself. He came from, and by, and because, and for the Father. And he mentions that again here. And he says, they have believed that I came from thee, and thou hast sent me. And because they have believed this, he says, I am glorified in them. Have you noticed that in the Gospel by John particularly, when we read so often about believing on Christ, believing on the Son, there is one particular preposition that is always used for the English prepositions in and on. When John says, believe in, or believe on, he uses one preposition, and it's a preposition of motion. It's a preposition that indicates we are moving somewhere. He that believeth on the Son is that special preposition that John always uses which can be perhaps better translated, in or towards. And what it means is this. This is not a mental assent to a given doctrine regarding the person of Christ. This is a movement of the heart. This is a movement of the whole person. This is a motion towards something, and that something is the Son. And every time when John says this, he that believeth in the Son, he that believeth on the Son, every time he says it, he uses that word, and it means that you and I are not statically placed in a situation where we have accepted a doctrine. As I heard one preacher say, I like to see people get saved in cold blood. I don't know how you possibly can do it. And having endeavored over the years to move hearts to faith in Christ, I have found it many times a very difficult contest to move someone, not to repeat words, but to move someone in the affections of their soul towards, and constantly towards. It isn't something, well, do you believe in Christ? Yes, of course I believed in Christ. I believed in Christ when I was eight years old. I believed in Christ when I was eleven. I believed in Christ when I was forty. That's not the idea of it. The idea of it, of believing on the Son, and believing in Christ, is a constant, unceasing, ever-ongoing motion of the heart towards Him. That's the preposition John always uses, and I like that, and I'm sorry that, oftentimes in our translations, we don't get that thought in that little two-word preposition, in or on, but that's what it is. Now, let's look on to verse eleven, and I'm no more in the world. I think you readily see that that was something of the problem that existed in our consideration of this chapter last night. You remember when we were looking at the first opening verses, I have glorified thee on the earth, having finished, or I have finished, the work which thou gavest me to do. And we said that has always presented a problem. How is it when the Lord hasn't been to the cross, He can say, I have finished the work that thou gavest me to do? And, if you were with us last evening, you will recall that we arrived at the conclusion that the Lord's not talking about the cross. He's not talking about the work of the reconciliation of all things. He's not talking about having made purgation for sin, as Hebrews 1 tells us. He is talking about having completed, having glorified his Father while he was on earth, having completed the work that the Father gave him to do. And the work that the Father gave him to do, he has done, and it is a completed work, and there's nothing left to do in it. And then we notice the other details in the chapter that told us clearly, I hope, what that work was. Now, he said something similar here. He says, in verse 11, I'm no more in the world. Well, where was he? Well, that depends, of course, what you understand by what he has said. And farther down he repeats this. And farther down he gives us the explanation of this. He says, I am no longer in the world. But these are in the world. He's talking about his disciples. He says, I'm not in the world. But they are in the world. And then he goes on to say farther down, while I was with them in verse 12, while I was with them in the world, I kept them in thy name. Those that thou gavest me, I have kept. And then he goes on farther into verse 18, as thou hast sent me into the world, even so have I also sent them into the world. I'm no longer in the world. What did he mean by that? Well, especially when he adds, these are in the world. Let us go back to those early verses again. I have glorified thee on the earth. Finished. Completed. Work. I have finished the work which thou gavest me to do. Now, he says, I'm no longer in the world. What does he mean? He says, they are in the world, but I am not in the world. Now, when he speaks of being of the world, or out of the world, he says, I am not of this world, and they are not of this world, even as I am not of this world. Remember when he was before Pilate? And Pilate said to him, art thou a king then? Because Pilate said to him earlier, don't you answer me, don't you understand that I have power to crucify thee and power to deliver thee? And the Lord said, thou couldst have no power at all against me, except it were given thee from above. Therefore, he, not they, he that delivered me unto thee has the greater sin. And Pilate had said to him, well, what have you done, your own nation? And the Jews have delivered you unto me. Who are you? Art thou the king of the Jews? And the Lord said, thou say'st it. But my kingdom is not of this world, because if my kingdom were of this world, then would my servants fight that I should not be delivered to whom? To the Jews. And I say to myself, wasn't he a Jew? He says to Pilate, if my kingdom were out of this world, if it were the product of this world, if it were of the principles of this world, if it went by the philosophy of this world, if my kingdom were part of this world, then my servants would fight that I should not be delivered to whom? To the Jews. My servants would fight that I should not be delivered to the Jews. That's an interesting statement, isn't it? Then he went on to say that they who had delivered him to the Jews were not the one who had delivered him to Pilate, because he said, he that delivered me unto thee has the greater sin. Well, who delivered the Lord to Pilate? It was not Judas. Judas put the master in the hands of the chief priests and the elders of Israel. The Pharisees who had sought to kill him for a long time, the Sadducees who had sought to undermine his confidence in the resurrection by their hypocritical and hypothetical case of the woman with the seven husbands. Who was it turned the master over to Pilate? It was the high priest. Because he did that, he ceased to be the high priest. You remember, he said to the Lord, I put thee under oath that thou tellest whether thou art the Christ or not. And the Lord said, thou sayest it. And the high priest, what did he do? He tore his clothes. Now, that's a gesture which meant several different things in the Old Testament Scriptures. Sometimes surprise, sometimes dismay, sometimes shock, or symbolically, it often represented or did represent major events that were going to take place. Now, when the high priest tore his clothes, what did this indicate? Well, this was symbolic. It indicated the secession of the Aaronic high priesthood. God never had another high priest after the night in which Caiaphas tore his clothes. That's the end. And there never, ever will be another high priest after the order of Aaron, because, consequent and subsequent to our Lord's resurrection, he was saluted when he went through the heavens, a high priest forever after the order of Melchizedek. And there is never, ever going to be another high priest after the order of Aaron. And even when you come to the book of Ezekiel, and you see the establishing of the Levitical order system under the sons of Zedok in the Millennial Kingdom, have you noticed there's no high priest there? Because that's when our Lord shall come forth as the Melchizedek high priest to Israel. But this high priest, Caiaphas the high priest, became the one who annulled, who destroyed, who caused to cease the Aaronic high priesthood. He, it was, who turned the Lord over to Pilate. And Pilate said, well, I don't understand. What have you done? And finally, you remember, he was so convinced that he was the king of the Jews that he was going to release him, because three times he told the Jews, he said, I find no fault in this man. I will therefore scourge him and let him go. And then finally they cried, away, away, we have no king but Caesar. And Pilate said, shall I crucify your king? And they said, we have no king. And finally, you remember, Pilate gave Jesus over. By the way, there's a word there that's used in three or four different ways in those passages. Judas betrayed him. The word is to deliver up. The nation, said Pilate, delivered you up unto me. Caiaphas delivered the Lord up to Pilate. It's the same word every time, whether it's betrayal or turned over. It's the same word that's used. And this is how our Lord came into the hands of Pilate. And finally, Pilate turned him over to the will, it says, of the people. And when he went outside to his cross, outside the city, you remember what Pilate did? Pilate wrote the saying, and he put it over the cross in Hebrew, Greek and Latin. That's interesting, isn't it? Why those three languages? And what does each language mean? In Hebrew and Greek and Latin, Pilate wrote and put the sign on the cross, this is the Jesus of Nazareth, the king of the Jews. The chief priests went to Pilate and said, don't write he is the king of the Jews, write that he said he was the king of the Jews. And in the bitterness and resentment of having been forced to do something he didn't want to do, Pilate said, what I've written, I've written. As far as I'm concerned, he is the king of the Jews. He was determined, Peter says later in the Acts, to release him, to let him go. And they forced him, they made him do something he did not want to do, and he was convinced he was the king of the Jews. And he put the writing over there. Now, what our Lord said was, he said, my kingdom is not of this world. He said something very similar here, doesn't he, about his disciples. They are not of, out of, part of this world. But he says, they're in the world. But he says, I'm no longer in the world. What's he talking about? What's he referring to? He says, and I think this is the key, as thou hast sent me into the world, speaking with his father, even so have I sent them into the world. What is he saying? The father sent him into the world with a work to do, with a mission to accomplish. And he says, I'm no longer in the world. That work is finished. That work is done. But he says, as thou didst send me into the world, so have I sent them into the world. They are in the world with a commission. They are in the world for a specific purpose. But he has fulfilled his purpose of coming into the world and being amongst them, as the earlier verses indicate. So he says to the father, as he goes down this chapter, while I was in the world, I kept them. He says in the middle of verse 11, Holy Father, keep through thine own name those whom thou hast given me. There it is again, that they may be one as we. While I was with them in the world, you see, he's no longer in the world regarding that task. He's fulfilled his commission. The steward's son has given the count of the fact that his work is finished. And he says, while I was with them in the world, I kept them. I guarded them. I watched over them. I protected them. And I did it because those that thou gavest me, I have kept. None of them is lost. And then he goes on farther on, because our time is moving, and he mentions them once more. Let's look down to verse 24, although it pertains considerably to our study tomorrow night. He speaks about the glory, and then he says in verse 24, Father, I will that they also whom thou hast given me be with me where I am. This is one of the very few occasions which I suggested to you last evening when the Lord Jesus expressed his own will. One of the very, very few times the Master ever said, well, we would say, I want. I want this done. I want that done. And he uses the word, the verb, to will to do something. He says, Father, I will those whom thou hast given me. There it is again, those whom thou hast given me. He has turned them over to his Father for safekeeping. And look what he says. He says in verse 17, after saying they are not of the world, even as I am not of the world, in 17 he says, Sanctify them in thy truth. Thy word is truth. Thou hast sent me into the world, even so have I also sent them into the world. Now, look at this. And for their sakes I sanctify myself. How do you understand that? He says to the Father, keep them, separate them, make them holy, preserve them in thy truth. I have kept them. Now, he says, you keep them, because they were yours anyway. But then he adds this mysterious touch. For their sakes I sanctify myself. What did he mean by that? How could the Lord sanctify himself, and how does it relate to his disciples whom he is leaving behind and committing into the care of his Father? He says it's for their sakes. Holy Father, he says, sanctify them in thy truth. Thy word is truth. I have given them thy word. I have given them the sayings that thou gavest me. Now, keep them in that truth, and preserve them as I have watched over them. And then he goes on to say, but for their sakes I sanctify myself. What did he mean, I sanctify myself? His work with them physically is done. What the Father gave him to do is done. He's kept them, he's guarded them, he's preserved them. But his heart goes out to them. He longs for them. And he says, even as he's leaving them, I sanctify myself. And I link this, in my mind at any rate, with the last chapter of the Gospel by Luke. Remember, the Lord leads them out as far as Bethany, and he lifts up his hands in blessing. You've noticed, I have no doubt, the way the four Gospels end, what the last words of each of the four Gospels were, and related them to that time when the Master had to leave his own. He lifts up his hands in an act of priestly blessing, and as he goes up into heaven, he goes up with upraised hands. And from then until now, my friends, we have lived under the blessing of the upraised priestly hands of the Lord in heaven. He is going to sanctify himself. He is going to dedicate himself, even though he's gone back into glory. He's going to dedicate himself as their high priest, with uplifted hands, to bless them, to watch over them. He's going to make that his particular office, and his heartfelt work. While, as I say, he's finished his work on earth amongst them, he's going to sanctify himself. He's going to put this first and above everything, as he passes through the defeated ranks of all the enemy who tried to hold him back, as Colossians chapter 2 tells us. They did their best to make it impossible for him to ascend up to heaven, but he's going through the ranks of the hosts of the enemy, past the principalities and powers and might and dominion and everything in that name. And when he arrives there, the Father salutes him. And he says, Thou art my son, this day have I begotten thee. Sit on my right hand until I make thine enemies thy footstool. And he sits down to be the high priest of his people, with the uplifted hands. And he has set himself apart to do that. He's dedicated himself, and in his heart and in his service, while he's gone, we benefit day by day, night by night, from the upraised hands of our priests in heaven. He says, For their sakes I sanctify myself, unwearying, unfailing, unflagging and inexhaustible. This is the dedication of the Master for his own, even as he leaves them and puts them back into the care of him whose they were before they were entrusted to him. Isn't it marvelous? In this last prayer, so many times he gives expression to the fact that, for him, they were everything. They were everything. He holds them close to his heart. He cares for them. He's concerned about them. He says, Father, sanctify them, keep them, preserve them, and I'm going to set myself apart to serve them as well. What a glorious Savior and high priest we have. Shall we pray?