Three Requests

Let’s see if you’re awake this morning with a quick quiz.

Where would you go to find the ocean?

Where would you go to find airplanes?

Where would you go to find a trapeze artist?

Where would you go to find a barber? (Pro tip: They don’t actually SELL barbers at the barber shop, so don’t ask.)

It’s important to know where you can find things in this often confusing world, isn’t it?

Indeed, there are whole groups on Facebook devoted to helping folks find different things in their communities.

When they’re not complaining about the James River Bridge, for instance, the folks in the Carrollton 411 group are an excellent resource for everything from mechanics to new restaurants. Same for the Suffolk 411 group.

Both of these groups, and many others, are devoted to answering the questions about our communities that everyone has at some time or another.

But there’s a question I’ve never seen in any of those groups that I’d bet nearly everyone has had at some point in their lives. And it’s a question that Jesus answers in this week’s passage from His High Priestly Prayer in John, chapter 17.

I’m going to pose the question for you here this morning, but I don’t want you to answer aloud. I just want you to think about your answer as we look at the text.

Where can you find joy?

Now, let’s be honest with one another this morning and admit to each other that we all look for joy in a wide variety of places.

We look for joy among family members — perhaps especially among our children and grandchildren. We look for joy on vacations in exotic places — or on vacation in the “Happiest Place on Earth.”

We look for joy in hobbies and pastimes. We look for joy in favorite places where we go to be alone and reflect. I have a friend who pursued joy at 40 different live concerts last year.

But for the most part, what we find in all those places we look for joy isn’t JOY so much as a temporary feeling of happiness or contentment or peace.

And there’s nothing wrong with those feelings as long as we recognize that they’re not JOY. As long as we recognize how fleeting they are, how dependent upon our circumstances they are.

Happiness may, indeed, be found in the presence of the grandchildren for the weekend. But when the weekend’s over, the feeling begins to fade.

My friend found happiness attending all of those concerts. But when each one was over, his greatest need was to begin preparing for the next one.

Joy, on the other hand, isn’t dependent upon one’s circumstances. And when it’s built upon the right foundation, it lasts.

So, let’s take a look at what Jesus says about joy in the prayer He prayed with His disciples on the night He was arrested.

Remember that I told you that in this prayer, He prayed for Himself, He prayed for His disciples, and He prayed for US, for the universal church, consisting of all true believers from all times and all places.

Last week, we began looking at how Jesus prayed for His disciples by talking about WHY He prayed for them at all.

This week, we’ll look at three of the four requests Jesus makes of His Father on behalf of His disciples. And we’ll see how those requests apply to us. And, along the way, we’ll discover the answer to that question: Where can you find joy?

Let’s read the passage together. We’re going to pick up in verse 11, even though we covered part of verses 11 and 12 last week.

John 17:11–16 NASB95

11 “I am no longer in the world; and yet they themselves are in the world, and I come to You. Holy Father, keep them in Your name, the name which You have given Me, that they may be one even as We are. 12 “While I was with them, I was keeping them in Your name which You have given Me; and I guarded them and not one of them perished but the son of perdition, so that the Scripture would be fulfilled. 13 “But now I come to You; and these things I speak in the world so that they may have My joy made full in themselves. 14 “I have given them Your word; and the world has hated them, because they are not of the world, even as I am not of the world. 15 “I do not ask You to take them out of the world, but to keep them from the evil one. 16 “They are not of the world, even as I am not of the world.

Now, you need to remember that Jesus considered His death, burial, resurrection, and ascension back into heaven to be so certain that He spoke as if all this had already taken place.

“I am no longer in the world,” He says in verse 11. Hours before His false arrest, His sham trial, and His unjust execution, Jesus was already anticipating His return to the glory of Heaven and the fullness of fellowship with God that He knew He’d experience there.

But He also knew that His departure from Earth would leave His disciples without His physical presence among them.

That they’d experience persecution and suffering of their own as they carried out His command to testify to the world about Him. That they’d no longer have Him there with them to protect them from the attacks of Satan.

And you might recall that I said one of the reasons Jesus prayed this prayer aloud was to encourage His disciples. It would help them emotionally to HEAR Jesus pray for the Father to keep them — to watch over them — after He was gone.

And that’s the first request He makes on their behalf in this prayer: That God, the Holy Father, who is exalted above all His creation, yet cares for His people like a good father, would keep them in His name.

That He would keep them loyal to God in Christ Jesus. That He would, as it’s put in verse 15, keep them from the evil one, from Satan, the ruler of this world.

And I think it’s useful to note that what Jesus prayed for wasn’t what the disciples seem to have wanted.

Back in chapter 13, near the beginning of the Last Supper, where chapters 13 through 17 take place, He had told them, “Where I go, you cannot follow me now; but you will follow later.”

And Peter had replied, “Lord, why can I not follow You right now? I will lay down my life for you.”

Now, there’s more to the exchange, but what I want you to notice is that the disciples had a genuine desire to be with Jesus wherever He was.

Clearly, their desire for self-preservation was greater, since they all scattered after His arrest. But I don’t think that made their desire to be with Jesus any less genuine.

But His prayer for them revealed that Jesus had other plans for the 11 disciples. They would remain in the world to carry on the work of spreading the gospel after He was gone.

But the world is a dangerous place, and the world’s systems operate from a set of ideals and values that are opposed to God. And even though he was defeated at the cross, Satan, whom Jesus called “the ruler of this world,” still sets the tone for what takes place here.

And so, it shouldn’t surprise us that the disciples might’ve hoped to be taken away from all this mess and into the perfect shalom, the perfect peace and contentment of heaven in the presence of Father, Son, and Holy Spirit.

Indeed, three of the Old Testament prophets prayed for just that at particularly low points in their lives.

When the people of Israel complained about the manna that God provided each day for them to eat, Moses had had enough, and he prayed to the Lord:

Numbers 11:14–15 NASB95

14 “I alone am not able to carry all this people, because it is too burdensome for me. 15 “So if You are going to deal thus with me, please kill me at once, if I have found favor in Your sight, and do not let me see my wretchedness.”

After Elijah had killed the prophets of Baal, Jezebel set out to kill HIM, and Elijah ran for his life with his servant to Beersheeba.

1 Kings 19:4 NASB95

4 But he himself went a day’s journey into the wilderness, and came and sat down under a juniper tree; and he requested for himself that he might die, and said, “It is enough; now, O Lord, take my life, for I am not better than my fathers.”

And when God had used Jonah’s terrible and half-hearted message of revival to bring repentance to the people of Nineveh, Jonah — acting the part of a 12-year-old — prayed:

Jonah 4:2–3 NASB95

2 He prayed to the Lord and said, “Please Lord, was not this what I said while I was still in my own country? Therefore in order to forestall this I fled to Tarshish, for I knew that You are a gracious and compassionate God, slow to anger and abundant in lovingkindness, and one who relents concerning calamity. 3 “Therefore now, O Lord, please take my life from me, for death is better to me than life.”

In each of those three cases, God refused to honor the request. And that’s because God had work for them to do HERE. Just as He had for the disciples. Just as He has for YOU.

They had been taken FROM the world by Jesus, who is not from this world but came into it. And now, by virtue of their faith in Him, they would remain IN the world, even as He left it.

They could not do the work they’d been saved to do if they weren’t in the world. But neither could they do it if they were OF the world.

Indeed, Jesus reminds them in verse 14 that they are NOT of this world. By virtue of their position IN CHRIST — by virtue of the fact that they’d been born again by the Holy Spirit — they were now new creatures, whose attitudes and values were now aligned with God’s.

And that set them in complete opposition to world. It meant that, just as the world hates Jesus for the exclusivity of the gospel message, it hates His followers for proclaiming that message.

As D.A. Carson puts it, “The Christians’ task … is not to be withdrawn from the world, nor to be confused with the world, but to remain in the world, maintaining witness to the truth by the help of the [Holy Spirit], and absorbing all the malice that the world can muster, finally protected by the Father himself, in response to the prayer of Jesus.” [D. A. Carson, The Gospel according to John, The Pillar New Testament Commentary (Leicester, England; Grand Rapids, MI: Inter-Varsity Press; W.B. Eerdmans, 1991), 565.]

But the disciples would not do their work alone. And neither do we. Just as they received the Holy Spirit on the Day of Pentecost, we who turn to Jesus in faith are given the Spirit to help us to live godly lives in an ungodly world and to help us to do the work we’ve been given to do.

AND they had one another, just as we who constitute the true church also have one another.

And that brings us to Jesus’ second request in this prayer: oneness among His followers.

Jesus prays that God would keep the disciples in His name — that He would keep them loyal to Him — SO THAT they could experience unity.

Now, this part of verse 11 is sometimes used to argue against all the denominations and other divisions within Christianity. But remember that the church didn’t exist at this point, and the separation of the church into various denominations wouldn’t take place until much later in history.

What Jesus was praying for was unity of life, unity of purpose, a family unity. And you should note that the unity He describes already exists. Jesus doesn’t pray that they BECOME one, but that they may “continually be” one.

He was praying, as Leon Morris puts it, that all their wills would be “bowing in the same direction, all affections burning with the same flame, all aims directed to the same end — one blessed harmony of love.” [Leon Morris, The Gospel according to John, The New International Commentary on the New Testament (Grand Rapids, MI: Wm. B. Eerdmans Publishing Co., 1995), 644.]

One of the great problems in the Church today is that it has lost that unity, by and large. That’s one of the reasons that I’m so careful to interview prospective church members.

I want to ensure, to the extent that I can, that those who want to join this church are ABLE to be united with us. That they’re ABLE to be directed to the same purpose as all followers of Jesus. That their ideals and values reflect — at least to some extent — those of Jesus and not the ruler of this world.

Jesus knew the damage that worldliness would cause to the witness of His church and to the message of the gospel. And so, He prayed that God would keep His followers loyal to Him and, therefore, unified in their desire to glorify God in Christ.

And one of the results of that unity would be the third thing Jesus prayed for His disciples: Joy.

As we experience the unity of life that comes through loyalty to God in Christ, joy is one of the main results.

And it’s significant to note that Jesus expected the disciples to experience this joy, even in the midst of being hated by the world.

In other words, this joy Jesus prays for isn’t a function of our circumstances. It’s a gladness that endures, even when we’re under affliction, even when we’re persecuted, even when we’re hated for our love of Jesus.

Let me tell you something about myself. For my entire adult life, I have suffered from depression. Sometimes it’s raw and painful, and sometimes it’s just a dull throb, reminding me that it’s still there.

And when I got saved, God didn’t miraculously cure my depression. I still have episodes of a day or a week when I just can’t imagine why the Lord still keeps my heart beating. I really do identify with Elijah some days.

But something changed when I turned to Jesus in faith. Now, no matter how dark things seem, I can always see the light of Jesus.

Now, I know that I am loved and even cherished by God Himself. Now, I know that I have Christian brothers and sisters I can talk to, people who will help me bear the burden of depression.

And the joy that comes with this knowledge lifts me up when depression has got me down.

So, where do we find this joy?

Well, let’s start with where it’s NOT to be found: in the world. Remember, if you have followed Jesus in faith, then you are still IN the world, but you are not OF the world.

Your character and your affections and your values should, to an ever-increasing degree, reflect the character and affections and values of God, not of the world.

And so, true JOY can be found in His WORD, in what He has revealed about Himself through the words of Scripture and through the life of Jesus Christ, the Word made flesh.

In verse 14, Jesus says He has given His disciples God’s word. Put differently, He told them what they needed to understand about God, and He showed them in His sinlessness and obedience what God is like.

Back in verse 3 of this chapter, Jesus gives the biblical definition of eternal life:

John 17:3 NASB95

3 “This is eternal life, that they may know You, the only true God, and Jesus Christ whom You have sent.

And then, in verse 6, He says they have come to know God, because He has manifested God’s name to the disciples. He’s revealed God’s character to them — and again, He did so in His words and His actions.

And the fullness of that knowledge of God would bring them joy.

But we’re different from the disciples in that we don’t have Jesus with us here physically. And so, OUR joy must come from what God has revealed about Himself in the Bible.

When we read the Bible, we are reading God’s words to us. We’re reading the words of Jesus, our bridegroom who awaits the glorious union between Himself and His Church.

Nothing should bring us greater joy than that. Indeed, heaven will be characterized by joy. But so should our lives here on earth be characterized by the joy of those who have heard and responded to our Savior’s call and continue to find comfort in His words.

I’ve been encouraged by the number of people who’ve mentioned to me that they’re reading through the Bible in a year with me on the Procrastinator’s Bible Plan.

I was especially encouraged this week, when someone told me he was glad he’d decided to participate, because he was finding peace and comfort in his daily readings.

And that’s encouraging, because it’s just what I’d hoped to hear at this point in our journey through the Bible.

We SHOULD find peace and comfort in God’s word. We SHOULD find joy in the connection to God that occurs as we read about His goodness, His mercy, His grace.

For we who’ve turned to Jesus in faith, joy SHOULD be our default position, because it’s HIS default position.

But let me warn you, folks. If you’re not deeply rooted in the WORD, you’ll find yourself growing in the WORLD. And since we are no longer OF this world, we can never find true and lasting joy IN this world.

In today’s passage, Jesus prays for the disciples to be kept from the evil one, He prays for them to experience unity, and He prays that their joy will be made full.

And every one of those requests is connected to the revelation of God in His word.

Do you want to be kept from the evil one? Do you want to experience the unity of life and purpose for which you were created in Christ Jesus? Do you want to have joy?

THIS is where you should be looking. THIS is where you’ll find those things. READ it. It changes everything.

Now, today is Lord’s Supper Sunday. This observance is important to the fellowship of the church. It brings us together in a unique way and reminds us that we belong to one another in Christ Jesus.

It reminds us of the love that He has for us and the love we’re called to have for one another.

Jesus commanded us to observe the Lord’s Supper as an act of obedience to Him, as a way of proclaiming that we who follow Him in faith belong to Him, and as a way of reminding us what He did for us.

The Lord’s Supper reminds us that our hope for salvation rests entirely on the sacrifice He made on our behalf at the cross. It reminds us that our life is in Him.

And the fact that we share bread from one loaf reminds us that we are, together, the one body of Christ. It reminds us that we’re called to unity of faith, unity of purpose, and unity of love.

It reminds us that, just as He gave up the glory He had in heaven, we who’ve followed Him in faith are called to give up any claims we might think we have to our own lives as we follow Him.

Finally, it reminds us that, as we’ve been given the testimony of the Holy Spirit within us, we are to share OUR testimony of salvation by grace through faith.

If you’re a baptized believer who is walking in obedience to Christ, I would like to invite you to join us today as we celebrate the Lord’s Supper.

Now, this sacred meal dates all the way back to when Jesus shared it with His disciples at the Last Supper on the night before He was crucified.

The conditions during the Last Supper were different than the conditions we have here today, but the significance was the same as it is today.

Jesus told His disciples that the bread represented His body, which would be broken for our transgressions.

Let us pray.

Matthew 26:26 NASB95

26 While they were eating, Jesus took some bread, and after a blessing, He broke it and gave it to the disciples, and said, “Take, eat; this is My body.”

As Jesus suffered and died on that cross, his blood poured out with His life. This was always God’s plan to reconcile mankind to Himself.

“In [Jesus] we have redemption through His blood, the forgiveness of our trespasses, according to the riches of His grace which He lavished on us.”

Let us pray.

Matthew 26:27–28 NASB95

27 And when He had taken a cup and given thanks, He gave it to them, saying, “Drink from it, all of you; 28 for this is My blood of the covenant, which is poured out for many for forgiveness of sins.

Take and drink.

“Now, as often as we eat this bread and drink the cup, we proclaim the Lord’s death until He comes.”

Maranatha! Lord, come!

Here at Liberty Spring, we have a tradition following our commemoration of the Lord’s Supper.

Please gather around in a circle, and let us sing together “Blest Be the Tie that Binds.”