To Be With Him!

Most of you know I spent six months on mission in Haiti a few years ago. And I know that I talk about it more than I probably should.

I don’t do so because I want you to think highly of me. Obedience to God shouldn’t be a point of pride for any of us.

Instead, that time in a foreign country, serving the least of these, separated from family and everything that felt like home, provided a wealth of illustrations that help in my teaching here.

So, please bear with me today as I remember one of the hardest parts of being in Haiti.

I hope what I share with you now will help to illustrate something Jesus said as He concluded His prayer for His disciples and us at the end of the Last Supper, on the night before His crucifixion.

There were lots of hard things about Haiti. Lack of regular electricity. The heat. The suffering of so many people whose government had failed them. I could go on and on.

And, as an aside, I’d like to ask that you pray for that nation, because the suffering I saw there in 2018 pales in comparison to what they’re facing now, with violent gangs in control of the country.

But the hardest thing for me about my time in Haiti was being separated from my family. We expected that would be hard, even before I left. But the reality of it was sometimes more painful than I ever could have expected.

Thankfully, I was in Haiti in 2018, which meant that I had technology to keep me connected with them. Emails and even occasional text messages kept us connected during the week. But I especially looked forward each Sunday to our weekly video chats.

I’d sit in front of my computer, pull up the chat window, make sure my hair was just right, and call Annette. She’d answer on her mobile phone, and I could see and talk to both her and Mom and even get a glimpse of the place we called “home.”

But seeing and talking to someone you love isn’t the same as holding her hand, getting a hug from her, and just being with her.

I wanted her to be with me where I was. And one of the highlights of my time there was the week she came to spend with me as part of a short-term mission team that came to serve our community.

We were both in tears when she came through customs at the airport in Port au Prince. And we were both in tears when she left again at the end of that week.

But the time we got to spend TOGETHER was a balm for my spirit. It helped me to get back to work and focus on what I’d been sent there to do.

And even though I loved the people I was serving, I could now look forward to being with HER where she was when I returned to the U.S.

Today, as we conclude our study of Jesus’ High Priestly prayer at the conclusion of the Last Supper, we’re going to see that Jesus has a similar longing for those who love Him to be with HIM where HE is.

We’re going to look at verses 24-26 in chapter 17 of John’s gospel this morning. We’ll take it a verse at a time this week. So let’s look at verse 24.

John 17:24 NASB95

24 “Father, I desire that they also, whom You have given Me, be with Me where I am, so that they may see My glory which You have given Me, for You loved Me before the foundation of the world.

What Jesus is describing here is a return to Eden, when Adam and Eve were with God where He was. And the return to that state is what God’s work throughout history has been all about.

We were MADE to be with Him. And the only reason we aren’t is because of our sin. But in HIM, we have righteousness.

And in HIM, we also have the holiness, the sanctification He talked about back in verse 17, where He prayed, “Sanctify them in the truth; your word is truth.”

Holiness is an attribute of God. He alone is holy, as the Tribulation saints sing before His throne in Revelation, chapter 15.

God imparts His holiness to those who draw near to Him through faith in Christ Jesus. And it’s the drawing near to God — not our good works — that sanctifies us, that makes us holy, that makes us more like Jesus.

We don’t generate our own holiness. Any holiness we have is a gift from God as a result of our fellowship with Him in Christ.

There’s a Bible scholar I follow on Facebook named Chad Bird, who teaches about Jesus from an Old Testament perspective. I want to read a few paragraphs from a recent post of his for you this morning. Listen to what he says about holiness.

“In the Old Testament, holiness was about proximity to God. The closer something was to his presence, the holier it was—whether people, places, or objects.

“For example, the inner sanctum of the tabernacle was the Holy of Holies, covered in gold, while the outer areas like the Holy Place or forecourt had less valuable metals.

“When the Bible speaks of people ‘consecrating’ or ‘sanctifying’ themselves, it does not mean they make themselves holy. Rather, they are to remain in the holiness God has already given them. Holiness is always received from God, never self-generated.

“In the New Testament, holiness is no longer tied to the temple but to Jesus Christ. He is the true Holy of Holies, the one who sanctifies us through his sacrifice. His blood makes us holy, and we are sanctified in him.

“Even ongoing sanctification is God’s work, not ours. Paul prays, ‘May the God of peace himself sanctify you completely.” Jesus prays, “Sanctify them in the truth; your word is truth.”

“The Holy Spirit draws us into Christ’s presence, sanctifying us through … the Word….

“Good works naturally flow from sanctification, but they are not its cause. We do not sanctify ourselves; we receive sanctification as a divine gift. Holiness is not what we do but what God does in us through Jesus Christ.” [Chad Bird, Facebook post, April 6, 2025, https://www.facebook.com/writingsofchadbird].

And what God does in us through Christ is a reflection of His glory, the glory He gave His Son.

The glory God gave Jesus is a result of the love He’s had for Jesus since before the beginning of time, before the universe was created.

There has never been a time when God did not love His Son with perfect love. Not even when Jesus was bearing the sins of the world — and their just punishment — at the cross.

Father, Son, and Holy Spirit have been in perfect unity and love for all eternity. And it’s because of this perfect unity that Jesus could say, as He did to Philip, “If you’ve seen Me, you’ve seen the Father.”

He came and showed us in His words and His deeds exactly what the Father is like. Look at verse 25:

John 17:25 NASB95

25 “O righteous Father, although the world has not known You, yet I have known You; and these have known that You sent Me;

The world hasn’t known God, because God is righteous, and the world is UNrighteous. Just as with God’s holiness, any righteousness we have is a gift from God.

Our righteousness as followers of Jesus is HIS righteousness imputed to us. And it’s a result of being drawn INTO Christ Jesus through faith.

The 11 disciples who remained in that Upper Room after Judas had left to betray Jesus had placed their faith in Him.

They’d known, as Jesus says here, that He is who He said He was — that He’s God’s unique and eternal Son, sent by God as the promised Messiah, the anointed one, the King of Israel who’d give Himself as a ransom for many.

Jesus had come to make God known to the world. He came to show us the glory of God, to help us to see and understand the righteous character of God in His words and His deeds.

But not only that, He’d also come to offer us a way to draw near to God through faith in Him. To become righteous and holy through our position in Christ.

Look at verse 26.

John 17:26 NASB95

26 and I have made Your name known to them, and will make it known, so that the love with which You loved Me may be in them, and I in them.”

For the Old Testament saints — those who’d placed their trust in God and were saved because of their faith in Him and His promises — their opportunities to truly draw near to God were limited, at best.

God dwelt among His people within the Jerusalem temple’s Holy of Holies, but this part of the temple was separated from the rest by a great and heavy curtain.

Only the High Priest could step behind that veil, and even then, only once a year, on the Day of Atonement, when he’d go inside that area to offer a sacrifice for the sins of that nation.

And even then, he could enter only after having purified himself and having offered sacrifices for his own sins.

For the rest of the Jews, how near they could draw to the presence of God depended on who they were.

The women of Israel could enter the temple only as far as the Outer Court, the Court of Women. The men of Israel could come closer, to the Court of Israelites.

Regular priests could come closer, to the court of priests, where sacrifices took place on a great bronze altar.

And Gentiles were required to remain completely outside the temple proper in an area known as the Court of the Gentiles.

But as the sinless Jesus hung on the cross at Calvary on that first Good Friday, bearing the guilt and shame of OUR sins, the sun became dark, and the earth shook, and the rocks were split. And the veil that separated the presence of God from His people was torn in two.

No longer would there be a barrier between God and His people. Now, we who follow Jesus in faith — Jews and Gentiles alike — can draw near to God through Christ. He is our mediator with God. He is our High Priest.

The writer of Hebrews puts it this way:

Hebrews 9:11–12 NASB95

11 But when Christ appeared as a high priest of the good things to come, He entered through the greater and more perfect tabernacle, not made with hands, that is to say, not of this creation; 12 and not through the blood of goats and calves, but through His own blood, He entered the holy place once for all, having obtained eternal redemption.

Jesus is our High Priest. He is our Holy of Holies. And in the Holy Spirit-inspired words of Hebrews, He is “the mediator of a new covenant.”

But what is this new covenant?

Jeremiah talks about it in his book of prophecy.

Jeremiah 31:31–34 NASB95

31 “Behold, days are coming,” declares the Lord, “when I will make a new covenant with the house of Israel and with the house of Judah, 32 not like the covenant which I made with their fathers in the day I took them by the hand to bring them out of the land of Egypt, My covenant which they broke, although I was a husband to them,” declares the Lord. 33 “But this is the covenant which I will make with the house of Israel after those days,” declares the Lord, “I will put My law within them and on their heart I will write it; and I will be their God, and they shall be My people. 34 “They will not teach again, each man his neighbor and each man his brother, saying, ‘Know the Lord,’ for they will all know Me, from the least of them to the greatest of them,” declares the Lord, “for I will forgive their iniquity, and their sin I will remember no more.”

God’s Word is written on the hearts of those who turn to Jesus in faith. Our sins are forgiven because of His gracious sacrifice at the cross. We who follow Jesus in faith now KNOW God, for He now dwells WITHIN us.

Christ Himself, our great High Priest, who now sits at the right hand of God, making intercessions for us and mediating for us with His Father, is the new Holy of Holies. But there is no longer a veil separating us from Him.

In these closing words of His prayer at the Last Supper, Jesus says He made God’s name known to us. In other words, He revealed the righteous God to we who’d been kept from Him by our unrighteousness.

This has been mankind’s main problem since Adam and Eve sinned in the Garden of Eden.

God had created this place for Adam and Eve to live and prosper in His very presence. He walked with them there, and He’d provided everything they’d need for complete contentment.

He’d given them an abundance of good food to eat and made only the fruit of the tree of the knowledge of good and evil off limits to them.

“In the day that you eat from it, you will surely die,” He’d told them.

But the serpent came and tempted Eve, and she saw the forbidden fruit and decided it looked like good food and that it would make her wise. And so she ate it, as did Adam, her husband.

In their disobedience, in their sin, they unleashed the curse of death upon the earth. And their rebellion against God cut them off from fellowship with Him.

They died spiritually that very day. Then they were cast out of the Garden, away from the presence of God, where physical death soon became Satan’s greatest weapon against God’s good creation.

And it was all a result of not trusting that God wanted only good things for them, that He wanted to keep them from those things that would harm them.

Instead of trusting the God who loved them, they trusted the serpent. They trusted the deceiver. They trusted Satan.

He promised them the authority to decide for themselves what was good and what was evil, even though God alone has the righteousness and the authority to declare such things.

And that’s what we all do to some degree or another. We all want to be able to declare the things that WE want to be good, even when God has told us they’re evil.

Adam and Eve brought sin into the world — and through it, death. And we all have inherited the sin nature they’ve passed along to us. But we also confirm that nature every time we fall short of God’s glory.

Every time we choose to gossip or cheat. Every time we covet or harbour hatred in our heats. Every time we look on someone else with lust. Every time we’re greedy or selfish or arrogant.

Every one of us has rebelled against the God who made us in His image — to be like Him. Whether in small ways or big ones, we’ve all fallen short of the glory of God.

We’ve all failed to be what God made us to be — like Him, loving righteousness and justice and peace and mercy and compassion.

And, just like Adam and Eve, our sins have cut us off from fellowship with Him who MADE us to be in a relationship of dependent faith in Him.

But God loved Adam and Eve, and He loves us. And so, before exiling them from the Garden of Eden, He made them a promise. You’ll find it in Genesis 3:15, where God curses the serpent for its treachery.

Genesis 3:15 NASB95

15 And I will put enmity Between you and the woman, And between your seed and her seed; He shall bruise you on the head, And you shall bruise him on the heel.”

This verse is known as the protoevangelium, the first seed of the gospel, spoken in front of Adam and Eve to give them hope that their descendants would would one day be reconciled to God.

And at the cross on that first Good Friday, Jesus fulfilled His Father’s promise.

Satan surely must have thought that the crucifixion of God’s only Son was the end of mankind. He knew we could never be reconciled to God while we were sinners.

And so, by stirring the masses to murder the Messiah who’d come to save us, he thought he’d won the war.

But in his arrogance and pride, Satan had forgotten the sovereign power of God. He’d underestimated God’s love for His Son and for the world.

The blow he’d thought was final was only temporary. He’d bruised the heel of Jesus, but he’d been crushed in the process.

At the cross, where He took upon Himself the sins of the world — and their just punishment — Jesus had conquered the Satanic power of sin.

He’d paid the price and suffered the punishment we all deserve for our sins so that all who turn to Him in faith can be forgiven and called righteous.

So we could have true life in Him — life the way it was always intended to be, in fellowship with Father, Son, and Holy Spirit.

And at the empty tomb three days later, Jesus conquered death itself. He’d used Satan’s greatest weapon against him.

Death would no longer hold power over followers of Jesus, because just as He was raised from the dead, so will we be raised to eternal life as adopted sons and daughters of God.

We who follow Jesus in faith now have the love of God Himself IN us. As Jesus puts it at the end of this prayer, we have the very same love of God in US that Jesus has.

In other words, God now loves followers of Jesus the same way He loves His own unique and eternal Son.

Indeed, we have God Himself in us in the person of His Holy Spirit. God is truly is WITH us.

And one day, just as Jesus promised and just as He prays in verse 26, we will be WITH HIM.

One day, as the Apostle Paul puts it in 1 Thessalonians, chapter 4, Jesus will return in the clouds with a shout, with the voice of the archangel, and with the trumpet of God.

The dead in Christ will be raised from their graves into glorified bodies, no longer subject to temptation, no longer subject to sickness and death.

And we who are alive and remain will be caught up together with them in the clouds to meet the Lord in the air. And as Paul concludes this wonderful passage, “so we shall always be with the Lord.”

And perhaps this helps explain how Jesus could have spoken at the beginning of this prayer of the joy He had, even though He knew the betrayal and suffering that awaited Him in the hours to come.

The work that God began way back in Genesis 3:15 would finally be complete. Satan would be defeated. And now fallen mankind finally would have a way to be reconciled to God.

We’d finally have a way to be set free from the bondage of sin. We’d finally have a way to escape the curse of death that Adam and Eve brought upon the world and that we show we deserve every time we sin, every time we rebel against God’s sovereignty, every time we fall short of who He made us to be.

What a wonderful Savior! What an awesome and powerful God we serve!

But if you’ve never placed your faith in Jesus — if you’ve never trusted that only His sinless life, His substitutionary sacrifice, and His supernatural resurrection, provide the only way for you to become right with God — then you’re still lost.

You’re still in bondage to sin. You’re still under the curse of death. You’re still separated from the God who made you to be in fellowship with Him. You’re already dead spiritually — dead in your trespasses, as the Bible puts it.

What can dead things do? NOTHING!

Listen, you can’t earn your way into heaven. There’s nothing you can do to put God in your debt. There’s no amount of good works or church activities or religious litanies that can wipe out your sins before a perfectly holy and righteous God.

Only the blood of Jesus, shed at Calvary’s cross, can do that.

And only by letting go of everything else you’re counting on to save you — by admitting that you’re a sinner unable to save yourself — can you then come to the cross of Jesus in faith in Him and Him alone.

He wants to be with you now. And He wants you one day to be with HIM where He is.

Will you place your faith in Him today? As the psalm we read earlier said, our King of kings and Lord of lords rejoices in salvation, along with all of the heavenly hosts.

Let today be the day they — and we — rejoice over YOUR salvation. Let today be the day Jesus comes to be with you.

During this last song, I’ll be standing on the floor there. If you’d like to talk to me about salvation — if you’re ready to accept Jesus’ gifts of forgiveness and eternal life — come and see me there, and let me pray with you.