John 17:20-26

So that the World might Believe.

Big Idea: Since God uses you to draw others to faith, you must share the Gospel.

Intro

Imagine you had cancer, and you dedicated your life to finding a cure. Which you eventually find and use to cure yourself. Then imagine that instead of sharing that cure with the world, you locked it away in a fault in the basement. That’s what it’s like when you receive the gift of life the gospel offer and don’t invite others to share in that gift. It’s like lighting a lamp and putting it under the table. It’s like being salt and then losing your saltiness. Jesus wouldn’t warn of such things if they were not a problem. But why would that be? Why would light want to hide, and salt lose its saltiness? Partly because disciples of Jesus don’t understand how God uses you to bring others to faith.

The amazing thing about the story of redemption is God’s willingness to use means to accomplish the salvation of the world. As Jesus prepares to leave His disciples, he will soon commission them to join in His work by bearing witness to the gospel. If Jesus’ prayer is the revelation of His heart’s desires, which as we have seen so far is a passion for the glory of God, and that the Father keep and sanctify those given Him, but also as we will consider today, that the world might believe in Him through their witness. As we consider this last section in Jesus’ prayer, he lays out His desire for His disciples to share the gospel with the world.

It turns out evangelism as Jesus envisions it is less about methods, and more about the kind of person you are. Certainly it involves speaking the word of the Gospel. But it also involves having certain marks: unity, order, and love. These marks testify to the gospel’s transforming power and serve as the churches greatest apologetic, “so that the world might believe” in Jesus and have eternal life.

So as we look closer at Jesus prayer asking how does the father use you to draw others to faith? We see that he uses you to draw others to faith by sharing His word, unity, glory, and love with the world so that they might believe in Jesus.

By sharing His word.

Jesus prays for “those who will believe” through the word of the disciples. That is you and me; that is, all those who are recipients of that message of the gospel. First it was preached by the Apostles, then it was committed to writing so that the message of the Gospel would be preserved until Christ should return. But as unique as their calling as Apostles was, the great commission was given not only to them, but to the whole church. That means that the first way that God uses you to draw others to faith is by sharing His word.

I have chosen the word share intentionally. We often think of sharing in terms of digital content. You have a share button, and you click it and can select who of your friends you want to share that content with. I don’t mean share in that sense. Rather, I mean “to have a share or part; take part in,” or, “to use, participate in, enjoy, receive, etc., jointly.” The gospel is a message, but it’s a message about a person. Even beyond that it is a message that invites you to take part in it. Not merely by passing it along, but by receiving and resting in that message by faith. In fact you can’t share it with others, if you do not first take part in it.

First the message of the Gospel must come to you and transform you before it go from you to transform others. That word of the gospel is the good news that the Father sent His only Son to be the savior of the world. He came and took on flesh, so that as the God-man he could stand in your place, taking the penalty your sins deserve while offering you his perfect righteousness. As the Apostle Paul said,

“For I am not ashamed of the gospel, for it is the power of God for salvation to everyone who believes, to the Jew first and also to the Greek. For in it the righteousness of God is revealed from faith for faith, as it is written, “The righteous shall live by faith.”” (Ro 1:16–17).

That gift of salvation is received by faith, which means that you not only hear the word, but that you participate in it’s message by believing that it is true of you. If death is the disease and the cure is Jesus, the gospel is the delivery method which brings you the cure for death, since it is the remedy for the cause of death, namely sin. Now you can’t go around giving the cure to others if you haven’t benefited from it yourself.

So to share the word you must participate in it; you must lay hold of Christ and taste the benefits that flow from his purchase of your salvation. Only then will you be able to share the message of the gospel with others. And only then will it be effective.

People know when you are sharing something with them your just trying to get rid of because its no use to you. There is a big difference between that and someone who tells you about something they love and by the end of your conversation you find yourself strangely loving it to. It’s important to note that when the Apostle Peter encourages us to be always ready to give a defense for the Hope that is within you, he anticipates that people will ask you about your hope. That means you will act a certain way that will prompt someone to ask you why. It is the next three marks of a Christian which are all produced by the word of the Gospel that cause the world to ask. They invite others to share with you in the unity, glory, and love of God. All so the world might believe in Jesus.

By sharing His unity.

“that they may all be one, just as you, Father, are in me, and I in you, that they also may be in us, so that the world may believe that you have sent me.” (Jn 17:21).

Jesus prays for the unity of the church, since that is one way God will use you to draw others to faith. Again, share is important. For unless you share in the unity of Father and Son, you cannot share in unity with other disciples.

The result of sin is disunity. When Adam wandered east of Eden, humanity became more and more divided. Oh, they certainly had their unification projects, where they came together and found common cause against God. In Babel, they wanted to make a name for themselves by building their own way to heaven. But God frustrated their plans. He would not have unity that way. Nor would he allow access back to Him through such feeble means. So he dispersed them and changed their languages. They would become distinct tribes and tongues, with smaller unity around nations. I think we can see something of the babel impulse in globalization, and in the flattening of cultural distinctions.

People may unite around shared culture and history, or as we find a Reddit, they may unite around any and every kind of hobby you could think of. And there is nothing wrong with that kind of unity. But a true unity consists in being reunited with your creator. Sin separated us from union and communion with God. Christ came to restore that union. To share the unity he has with His father, which is spiritual. So by being united to Christ by His Spirit, we share in the unity he has with His father, which means we are united to the Father in Christ by the Spirit. Jesus effects this union by reconciling us to God through his death on the cross.

Only when you share in the unity of Father and Son by His Spirit can you have true unity with one another. We see the evidence that when the Spirit is poured out upon the disciples at Pentecost and the rush out into the streets speaking in tongues, and Jews gathered from all over the empire hear the word of the gospel in their own tongues. This is a reversal of Babel, prefiguring the true unity believers would share in the church as the body of Christ, united together under her head, the Lord Jesus.

“And he gave the apostles, the prophets, the evangelists, the shepherds and teachers, to equip the saints for the work of ministry, for building up the body of Christ, until we all attain to the unity of the faith and of the knowledge of the Son of God, to mature manhood, to the measure of the stature of the fullness of Christ,” (Eph 4:11–13).

That is Jesus’ prayer, that we attain that unity of faith. Not by uniformity, the unity Christ prays for does not flatten the distinctions of diversity. But wait, I thought Paul taught repeatedly “there is neither Jew nor Greek, there is neither slave nor free, there is no male and female, for you are all one in Christ Jesus.” (Ga 3:28). But even there Paul is not flattening distinctions, but is teaching that none of those distinctions prohibit you from coming to Christ for salvation. If you are a woman, you don’t need to become a man so you can be circumcised to be saved. Nor does a gentile need to become a Jew to receive the gift of salvation. Faith not distinctions are what enable you to be in Christ.

Once there, we find unity together in our salvation by Christ. But the egalitarians are wrong to point to text like these to say that now that we have come to Christ those previous distinctions are done away with. For as our text teaches, the Son is united to the Father, but He remains the Son. They share one essence, but with a distinction of persons defined by the relation to one another. The Father is the Father because of the Son, and the Son is the Son because of the Father, and the Spirit is the Spirt because he proceeds from the father and the Son.

So our unity is not uniformity, but conformity to Christ, with a shared commitment to glory of God. This unity is already/but-not-yet. We are already one complete body, stretching from the beginning of time to the end, covering all geography and history. That is the church catholic (everywhere and for all time). But we do not yet see that completed as it will be in glory. Partly because we do not embody that in our relation one to another within the church. But also because there are others who must be invited in to share with us the unity we have in Christ.

Again, if you are not living out of your union with Christ, by which I mean if you are not experiencing the joy and benefits of a restored relationship with God, you cannot share that unity with others. But when you do you can’t help but invite others to come and share with you that experience of unity. Paul summarizes this kind of ministry by saying,

“For the love of Christ controls us, because we have concluded this: that one has died for all, therefore all have died; and he died for all, that those who live might no longer live for themselves but for him who for their sake died and was raised. From now on, therefore, we regard no one according to the flesh. Even though we once regarded Christ according to the flesh, we regard him thus no longer. Therefore, if anyone is in Christ, he is a new creation. The old has passed away; behold, the new has come. All this is from God, who through Christ reconciled us to himself and gave us the ministry of reconciliation; that is, in Christ God was reconciling the world to himself, not counting their trespasses against them, and entrusting to us the message of reconciliation. Therefore, we are ambassadors for Christ, God making his appeal through us. We implore you on behalf of Christ, be reconciled to God.” (2 Co 5:14–20).

And you to are ambassadors, pleading with others be reconciled to God. SO by sharing the word of the Gospel you offer to the world, alienated and disunified, the promise of sharing in the unity of Father and Son, by believing in the Son. It’s a unity you share with others by experiencing it in your union with Christ, by embodying it in the church, and by inviting others to join you by being reconciled to God.

That’s not all Jesus prays for. He also prays that God would use you to draw others to faith by sharing His glory.

By Sharing His glory

We already considered the glory of God in some detail several weeks ago when Jesus began his prayer at the start of chapter 17. God’s glory is the perfection of His attributes which merit honor and praise. Often described using language of splendor and beauty and light, glory, honor, and praise. In Greek, the word is doxa, from which we derive the word doxology. God’s glory is anything worthy of praise, honor, and glory. In fact, that’s where the English word worship comes from, since it is a shortening of the word worth-ship. God is worthy of glory.

But what is the glory of Christ? And how can Jesus give that glory to us? St. Irenaeus has a statement that is often quoted, “The glory of God is a living man,” or it could be translated, “the glory of God is man fully alive.” By that he meant, God is glorified in man when he most closely adheres to his creational purposes. When Adam walked with God int he garden, clothed in his original righteousness, without stain of sin, Adam was glorious. He shone forth the glory of God by perfectly imaging God.

Sin caused Adam to lose his original righteousness, and to curve in on himself (incurvature se), marring the image of God. I like the way Peter Jackson, in his rendition of The Lord of the Rings, captured the effect the ring had overtime on Gollum. Before finding the ring and being consumed with it, Sméagol was a Stoor Hobbit who lived by the water and loved to explore. But when he finds the Ring, he is drawn to it, willing even to murder his friend Déagol just to have it. While he has the ring, it seems to possess him. Over centuries, the Ring unnaturally prolongs his life while physically and mentally degrading him. His body becomes emaciated, his eyes grow large and glowing, and his Hobbit-like traits erode, leaving a hunched, wretched creature. Mentally, he develops a split personality: "Sméagol" clings to faint remnants of his old self, while "Gollum" embodies the Ring’s domination, obsessed with his "Precious." This internal conflict and the Ring’s malevolence drive him to a state of wretchedness, surviving on raw fish and whatever he can scavenge, until Bilbo Baggins encounters him.

Tolkien gives us a startling picture of the nature of sin, and how deforming it is to our humanity and the image of God. But Christ is a man fully alive. He is not marred by any trace of sin. “He is the radiance of the glory of God and the exact imprint of his nature” (Heb. 1:3). The glory God gave him was the glory of being a perfect man, without any spot or blemish. Instead of disorder there is order. Ever aspect of his human nature functions exactly as it was designed by God to work.

This glory he prays that the Father will also give to His people. The apostles make this a key aspect of Christian discipleship which we call sanctification. Let me give you a brief sample from the Apostle Paul, John and Peter.

“And we all, with unveiled face, beholding the glory of the Lord, are being transformed into the same image from one degree of glory to another. For this comes from the Lord who is the Spirit…For God, who said, “Let light shine out of darkness,” has shone in our hearts to give the light of the knowledge of the glory of God in the face of Jesus Christ.” (2 Co 3:18; 4:6).

“Beloved, we are God’s children now, and what we will be has not yet appeared; but we know that when he appears we shall be like him, because we shall see him as he is. And everyone who thus hopes in him purifies himself as he is pure.” (1 Jn 3:2–3).

“His divine power has granted to us all things that pertain to life and godliness, through the knowledge of him who called us to his own glory and excellence, by which he has granted to us his precious and very great promises, so that through them you may become partakers of the divine nature, having escaped from the corruption that is in the world because of sinful desire.” (2 Pe 1:3–4).

Sanctification is being conformed to the image of the Son, to the glory of the Son. The glory of a man who is fully alive. The Spirit carries out that operation using the ordinary means of grace. So when you come in worship, you see Christ; you hear Christ speak to you, and you feed upon Christ, all so that from one degree of glory to another, you steadily become more like him.

Is that true of you? Are you steadily conforming to the image of Christ? Or is sin continuing to deform you? I have seen some in old age with that rare beauty you could call glory, whose life is adorned by godliness. And I’ve seen others who come to old age bent and twisted, with a life adorned bitterness and envy.

The Father uses us to draw others to faith by the witness of rightly ordered lives that reflect the glory of Christ. I have said this often, but it’s worth repeating. As divorce rates hover around 40-50%, which is a decline from previous years, although it should be balanced against the fact that marriage rates are declining, as people forgo marriage in favor of cohabiting. In that environment, one of the greatest showcases of the gospel is a rightly ordered family. A husband leading and loving his wife; a wife obeying and respecting her husband, with a passel of children who obey their parents. If you spent half as much time developing your family and its life as you did engaging the culture war on social media, I daresay we may have won it by now. Husbands, you want to share the glory of Christ–love your wife as Christ loved the church, laying down his life for her. Wives, obey your husbands, as the church obeys Christ. Share the glory of Christ by ordering your life so that steadily, more and more, it conforms to the image of Christ.

The Father uses you to draw others to faith by sharing in His glory, which is being conformed to the image of His Son. A rightly ordered life is one of the greatest apologetics the world will ever see.

“In the same way, let your light shine before others, so that they may see your good works and give glory to your Father who is in heaven.” (Mt 5:16).

“Keep your conduct among the Gentiles honorable, so that when they speak against you as evildoers, they may see your good deeds and glorify God on the day of visitation.” (1 Pe 2:12).

But the Father also uses you to draw others to faith by sharing His love.

By sharing His love.

While the central thrust of Jesus’ prayer may be for His people to experience unity, by sharing in His unity, the further result of that unity is an experience of the love of the Father. Notice in v. 23 this is so the world might know that you sent me and loved them even as you loved me. Does the world know that Jesus loves you as the Father loved him?

Again, I use share intentionally in two ways. As you come to share in the love of the Father and the Son, you can then love others. Only by being loved can one love others. That was the reason for the coming of the Son. So that he could reveal the Father to those the Father gave Him to save. So that “the love with which you have loved me may be in them, and I in them” (26). We cannot separate the benefits of Christ from the person of Christ. If you are to have the love of Christ in you, you must have Christ in you. If you are to have the glory of Christ, you must have Christ in you. If you are to share in the fellowship of the Father and Son, then you must, by the Spirit, be united to the Son. Apart from Christ, you can have none of His benefits.

The world will know that you have Christ in you, they will know that you have experienced the love of Christ by the way that we love one another. “By this all people will know that you are my disciples, if you have love for one another.”” (Jn 13:35). Again sharing His love has apologetic value so that the world might believe in Jesus.

Conclusion

What we have seen today is sharing your faith is much more than the words we speak, its more than just relaying a message. Now, it’s not less than that. The word certainly must always accompany deed. But as I have tried to show, Jesus’ heart for all those who will believe through the message of the Gospel is that the Father use them to draw others to faith also. He does that by having you share His life: His unity, His Glory, and His love. So apologetics is as much about what you say as about who you are. Since that is the case, you must be united to Christ, conformed to Christ, and experiencing the love of Christ so that through you the world might believe in Jesus. Amen.

Lord’s Supper Meditation

This meal is a celebration of your share in Christ, it’s a picture of your union with Him in His death; it’s a reminder to be conformed to Him, by putting off the old man, and feeding on Christ, and it’s a seal of His love for you. Come and share in the life of God; come in faith and feed on Christ. May his body be bread of health, and His blood be the wine that gladdens your heart. Come and welcome to Jesus Christ.

Charge

Since God uses you to draw others to faith, you must share the Gospel.