John 17:20-26 “The Persuasive Power of Unity”

1:05Well, a divided locker room is a bad thing. When a team can't agree on a goal, or they can't agree on what is keeping them from reaching that goal, it's very hard for them to be successful. So, one of the coaches' most important jobs is to help each player on the team understand what the goal is. And how they uniquely contribute to helping the team reach that goal. A divided locker room is bad, but a divided church is far worse.

1:46Because what's at stake isn't winning a game for entertainment, but rather winning souls for eternity. Today, we're covering the third and final section of what is known as the high priestly prayer here in John 17. And so far, we've seen in the first few verses how Jesus prays for himself and then how he prays for his disciples. Well, now in this final section, verses 20 through 26, Jesus is going to pray for us, for those who are going to come to believe in him through the spoken and written testimony of those first disciples.

2:26And Jesus' primary concern is that our faith and love will unite us and present an accurate picture of the Father and the good news of Jesus to the world. Division in the church works against the goal of reaching all nations with the good news of Jesus Christ. And so, what we're going to learn today in this section is that Christian unity persuasively points the world to God and his gospel. Christian unity persuasively points the world to God and his gospel. Let's pick up here in verse 20.

3:08Jesus begins this prayer by saying, I do not ask for these only, but also for those who will believe in me through their word. Now, on the night when Jesus was betrayed, when there were so many other people and so many other things that Jesus could have prayed for, our Savior prayed for us, for you and me, for his followers that were not even born yet and would not, in many cases, be born for hundreds or even thousands of years.

3:41What an incredible encouragement that is. We know from Hebrews chapter 7, verse 25, that Jesus lives to make intercession for us now. But friends, he prayed for us long before we ever existed. That should lift our spirits. And I want you to note how Jesus refers to us. Look again at verse 20. He calls us those who will believe in me through their word. Now, here's why that's noteworthy. Before his resurrection from the dead, Jesus foreshadows what we call the Great Commission, which is the call of every follower of Jesus to make more followers of Jesus. Jesus. Now, God is God, and he can reveal himself anytime in any way that he chooses. And a few times in history, he chose to reveal himself and called his people to follow him through things like dreams and visions and burning bushes and things of that nature.

4:54But friends, most often God chooses to work through ordinary means to accomplish his purposes. And most specifically, he chooses to work through the testimony of his own people. I want you to look on the screen at Romans 10, verse 14. Paul asks, How then will they call on him in whom they have not believed? And how are they to believe in him of whom they have never heard? And how are they to hear without someone preaching?

5:30Indeed, how are they to hear without someone preaching? That someone was the original disciples. That someone was those 11 men in that upper room who are going to take the gospel out to Judea and Samaria and to the ends of the earth. But now that someone is you and me. You see, you don't live next to my neighbors. I do. I don't sit next to your coworkers or your classmates. You do. That someone that must go and preach the gospel is you.

6:20That someone that must go and preach the gospel is me. We are the ones that God has divinely and providentially placed in the exact spaces that we are. You know the people that you know, you are related to the people that you are related to because God intends for you to share the good news of Jesus with those people. That's why he's placed you in their lives. And so, friends, before we move on, I wanted to just take a moment to reflect on the implications of that first verse.

6:53That there were people, millions upon millions of people, who were going to come to believe only because those first 11 disciples were faithful to go and preach the gospel to their neighbors, their coworkers, and their friends. In the same way, there are yet many more people who will come to believe in Jesus when you and I share the gospel with them. We are the means that God has appointed. That someone is you. That someone is me.

7:23So I want you to think about that this morning and meditate on that fact that the Lord has appointed you to go. And be that means, that we have the privilege to share the gospel with others. Let's go back to the beginning of verse 20. Jesus says, I do not ask for these only, but also for those who will believe in me through their word, 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. The glory that you have given me, I have given to them, that they may be one, even as we are one. I in them, and you in me, that they may become perfectly one, so that the world may know that you sent me and loved them, even as you loved me.

8:18Now, there is a lot to unpack in those few verses. We saw in verse 20 that Jesus is praying for us and for all of those who will, through the testimony of other Christians, come to believe in Jesus. That's who he's praying for. But what does he ask God for? What is he praying for here? Out of all of the things that Jesus could have asked the Father on our behalf, the first and primary thing that he prays for is our unity. Look back at verse 21.

8:52Jesus prays that they may all be one. Look at the next verse, verse 22, that they may be one. Even as we are one. Look at verse 23, that they may become perfectly one. So Jesus is praying for unity, and he doesn't just ask for unity, he prays it in three different ways, with each request getting more powerful, stronger than the previous request. He starts off by praying that we would be one. And then he moves on and he prays that we'd be one just like he and the father are one. And then finally, he prays that we would become perfectly one.

9:41It's hard to see how Jesus could have prayed more fervently for our unity than he did in these verses. And to understand what Jesus is asking for, we have to define unity. What does it mean to be united? Well, to be united is to be one. It is to be joined together for a common purpose. Now, for those who have young children, you know that toys are constantly getting dropped and broken at home. And so what happens when a toy gets dropped and broken? Well, you wipe the tears, and then you pick up all the pieces, and you Figure out how to join them back together, how to reunite them.

10:36But we all know that something has to hold the pieces together. You can't just pick up the pieces and set them next to each other and think that your child is going to be satisfied with that. No, something has to hold those pieces together. You need a glue to hold those pieces back together, to reunite them. And so, back here in John 17, Jesus is praying for our unity. But we know that Christians come from all walks of life: rich and poor, socially desirable and socially undesirable, educated and uneducated. And so, the question is: what is the glue? What is the glue that holds people who are this diverse together?

11:28Well, friends, it is the gospel, the message of Jesus Christ. We may have nothing else in common, ethnicity, or background or interests, but what we share is our common belief that Jesus is both Lord and Christ, that He is the Son of God and the Savior of all who believe. The gospel of Jesus Christ is the glue that holds all of us together. Because when we believe the gospel, We are united with God in Christ. That's a truth that you find all throughout the New Testament, but it's a truth that you find in this passage as well. Look at how many times Jesus refers to our unity with God. Go back to verse 21.

12:18He prays that they may be in us. Verse 23. He says, I in them and you in me. Go all the way down to verse 26, the last verse of the passage. He prays, that the love with which you loved me may be in them, and I in them. Back in John chapter 14, take a look at what Jesus said. Jesus answered him, If anyone loves me, he will keep my word, and my father will love him, and we will come to him and make our home with him.

13:04Paul talked about it this way in Colossians chapter 1. He said, To them, God chose to make known how great among the Gentiles are the riches of the glory of this mystery, which is Christ in you, the hope of glory. What we learn from the New Testament is that when we believe, The gospel, we have perfect eternal unity in Christ, a unity that can never be broken or taken away. And when we believe the gospel, we are also united to one another.

13:46But here's the catch in this passage: our unity with each other is dependent first on the fact that we are all united to God through faith in Christ. If you're familiar with Christian history, you know that during the Protestant Reformation, the Pope and many leaders in the Catholic Church were upset with men like Martin Luther and John Calvin, and they accused them of destroying the unity of the church. But the reality is that the Catholic leaders made unity impossible by distorting the gospel of Jesus Christ, by adding to it and taking away from it. They distorted the gospel of Jesus Christ, and therefore they took out the glue that held all of the Christians together in the first place.

14:41Here's how A.W. Tozer said it. 100 pianos, all tuned to the same fork, are automatically tuned to each other. They are of one accord by being tuned not to each other, but to another standard to which each one. Must individually bow. So, 100 worshipers met together, each one looking away to Christ, are in a heart nearer to each other than they could possibly be were they to become unity conscious and turn their eyes away from God to strive for closer fellowship.

15:25You see, Luther, Calvin, and many others never intended to leave the Catholic Church. That's why they're called reformers. They wanted to reform it, they wanted to see it change so that it went back to obeying and submitting to the biblical gospel of Jesus Christ. They never wanted to leave. But when it became clear that reformation was not going to be possible, the only thing left for them to do was protest, become Protestant, and then leave and start churches that would be able to be united around the biblical gospel. Because that's the only way for us to have true and lasting unity.

16:09All genuine Christians are united by our faith in Jesus and his gospel. That is the glue that bonds us all together. Now, the question is, why is our unity so important? Why does Jesus make it such a central focus of his prayer? Well, there's two reasons that become evident. Evident in this passage. And the first reason is more implied. It's never directly stated in the passage, but it is in so many of the verses that we've already looked at. And the first reason our unity is so important is because Christ is perfectly united with the Father and with the Holy Spirit. And we are His body.

16:56We are the body of Christ, and Christ is perfectly united with the Father and the Holy Spirit. You see, when Christians don't live in unity, we are not displaying the truth about God Himself. Jesus is not divided, and there is no division between the Father and the Son and the Holy Spirit. There is perfect unity in the Trinity. And the great mystery of the gospel is that this unity that we enjoy with the perfectly united God is the truth of what we see in this passage. We have unity with a perfectly united God. Look at Colossians 1:27 again.

17:37To them God chose to make known how great among the Gentiles are the riches of the glory of this mystery. It is a profound mystery, which is Christ in you, the hope of glory. Our unity is so important because Christ is perfectly. Unified with the Father and with the Holy Spirit, and we, friends, are the body of Christ. That's the first reason that our unity is so important. The second reason that our unity is so important is stated directly in the text.

18:19The second reason is that our unity is a tangible display of the power of the gospel to non-Christians. Our unity is a tangible display of the power of the gospel to non-Christians. Take a look back at verse 21. Why does Jesus pray for our unity? He says, so that the world may believe that you have sent me. Look at verse 23. So that the world may know that you sent me and loved them even as you loved me.

18:57So according to Jesus, our unity will lead the world to conclude that the Father sent Jesus and that Jesus loves us just like the Father loves him. In a divided world where billions of people hold innumerable false ideas and beliefs about God and His world and salvation and judgment and eternity, Jesus says that our unity is one of the primary things, if not the primary thing. That will lead people to believe and know that the Father sent Jesus and that God loves us.

19:39That should make every Christian pause and reflect and consider what our unity or our lack of unity may be communicating to the watching world. But I think when you read the New Testament, one of the things that becomes abundantly clear is that it's not just unity around the gospel that's so important, but our unity with one another that is dependent on how we live out our lives together. Because when you read the New Testament, what you come to see is that we can all agree on what the gospel is, and we can even agree and intend to live our lives united around the gospel. But, friends, if we don't live our lives in light of the gospel, living out the implications of the gospel, then we cannot be unified. Our unity will be threatened. I want you to remember Ephesians chapter 4. We talked about this passage a lot last week when Jesus prayed for the unity of the first disciples. Paul writes, I, therefore, a prisoner for the Lord, Urge you to walk in a manner worthy of the calling to which you have been called, with all humility and gentleness, with patience, bearing with one another in love, eager to maintain the unity of the Spirit in the bond of peace.

21:19So, if you look through the New Testament, you will see a few instances where the unity of the church was threatened because believers were turning away from the biblical gospel. That was true in Galatia, it was probably true in Colossi. But for the most part, their unity was threatened not by what they believed about Christ, but by the way that they were living or not living with each other. I want you to think about a few examples. In Acts chapter 6, the unity of the church was threatened by the real or perceived favoritism that was being shown to the Hebrew widows. Favoritism threatens our unity. If you go ahead to Acts chapter 15, you had Jewish Christians who were telling Gentile Christians that if they wanted to be saved, they had to be circumcised and keep the law of Moses.

22:20They were adding to the gospel. Legalism threatens our unity as Christians. Of 1 Corinthians is essentially a manual for how to live in disunity. There are so many problems in this church. It's almost every chapter that Paul is dealing with some issue of unity. In chapter 1, the Christians are uniting around their favorite preachers. Partiality threatens our unity. In chapter 5, you have a man committing sin with his stepmother that is so disgusting, even non-believers are amazed that's happening. And people in the church were tolerating it. Sin threatens our unity.

23:08In chapter 6, believers are taking each other to court, oftentimes seemingly over frivolous matters. Bitterness and unforgiveness threaten our unity. In chapters 8 and 10, you have Christians that are unwilling to go without eating certain foods or drinking certain drinks or attending certain festivals because they want to do those things and they feel the freedom to do it while it's offending and leading others astray. Selfishness threatens our favoritism. In chapter 11, you've got wealthy Christians who are stuffing themselves and getting drunk in front of their brothers and sisters who have nothing, can't afford anything to eat or drink, and then they're taking the Lord's Supper together.

23:56Selfishness threatens our unity. Worldliness threatens our unity. In chapters 12 through 14, you have people who are exercising spiritual gifts, but not to build up the church. It's because they want to use their gifts. They want to be prominent in the church. And so they're disrupting worship. And so we see that pride threatens our unity. Friends, here's the deal: with few exceptions, the church's unity was not threatened because there was disagreement about the content of the gospel.

24:31The church's unity was not threatened because they could not agree on what must one do to be saved. No, rather, the church's unity was threatened because Christians were not living in light of the gospel. They were not living out the implications of the gospel and walking in a manner worthy of the calling that they had received. And because they were disunified, the lost world did not see an accurate picture of God. The lost world did not see an accurate picture of the gospel. So they undercut their gospel witness before they ever left the meeting of the church, before they ever opened their mouths to share the truth about Jesus and what he had done.

25:20Look what commentator Bruce Milne wrote. He says, the biggest barriers to effective evangelism, according to the evil, To the prayer of Jesus are not so much outdated methods or inadequate presentations of the gospel as realities like gossip, insensitivity, negative criticism, jealousy, backbiting, an unforgiving spirit, a root of bitterness, failure to appreciate others, self-preoccupation, greed, selfishness, and every other form of lovelessness. Church, it's very unlikely that among a group of people like us, we are just all of a sudden going to walk away from the biblical gospel and start having debates about the content of the gospel or what one must do to be saved. It is far more likely that our unity will be threatened in the same ways that the early church's unity was threatened. And that's through a failure to love one another and to live out the implications of the gospel with each other. And so let's be challenged this morning to walk in a manner worthy of the gospel because we are walking in a manner worthy of the gospel before a lost and dying world that needs to see and know the truth about God and his gospel.

26:52Let's pick up in verse 24. Jesus prays, Father, I desire that they also, whom you have given me, may be with me where I am, to see my glory that you have given me, because you loved me before the foundation of the world. Jesus' second request is that everyone the Father gave to him would be where he is. In other words, glorified with him in heaven. After all, this is what Jesus promised the disciples earlier in the upper room. Take a look at John 14.

27:36He said, In my Father's house are many rooms. If it were not so, would I have told you that I go to prepare a place for you? And if I go and prepare a place for you, I will come again and take you to myself, that where I am, you may be also. Later on, Paul affirmed Jesus' promise. Look what he says to the Thessalonians. For God has not destined us for wrath, but to obtain salvation through our Lord Jesus Christ, who died for us, so that whether we are awake or asleep, we might live with him.

28:19So Jesus prayed that God would grant his desire and fulfill his promise by allowing all of the disciples to be with him. And then he gives the reason why. Look again at verse 24. He says, to see my glory that you have given me, because you loved me before the foundation of the world. Now that is quite a claim, especially for any Jewish person listening to Jesus say these words or reading these words, because they know Isaiah 48.

28:56And if you look on the screen, you'll see Isaiah 48:11. God says through the prophet, For my own sake, for my own sake, I do it. For how should my name be profaned? My glory I will not give to another. My glory I will not give to another. Do you see that? The Father says he will not share his glory with anyone else because to do so would be idolatrous and that would be unthinkable. But here in John 17, Jesus says that he wants his disciples to be with him where he is so that they can see the glory that he had with the Father. Now, if God won't share his glory with another, how can he share it with Jesus?

29:44Well, if you look at the end of that statement, it gives us the answer. He says there in verse 24, Because you loved me before the foundation of the world. Jesus. Is saying that he, just like God the Father, has always existed. Jesus was never created, but is himself God. And that's why the Father can share his glory with him, because Jesus is God Himself in the flesh. You see, the disciples had come to know and believe that Jesus is God's Son. And some of them, Peter, James, and John, namely, even got to see Jesus transfigured on the mountain. They got to see a glimpse, a momentary glimpse of his glory. But not one of them got to see Jesus in all of his glory, highly exalted and seated at the right hand of the Father. And friends, that's what Jesus wanted for them. To be where he is and to see the glory that he had with the Father before the foundation of the world, before anything was ever created.

30:59And church, that is what we should want for ourselves. Every one of us who is a believer today, we should want, desire, hope, and pray to be with Jesus. But I think for many, including many professing Christians, that's not the reality. For a lot of us, if we're honest, we don't long to be with Jesus the way that he longs for us. us to be with him if we're honest our lives really more resemble a Kenny Chesney song where he says everybody wants to go to heaven but nobody wants to go now well we just have to understand that was not Paul's attitude look at what he wrote in Philippians 1 for to me to live is Christ and to die is gain if I am to live in the flesh that means fruitful labor for me yet which I shall choose I cannot tell I am hard pressed between the two my desire is to depart and be with Christ for that is far better Paul did not agree with Kenny this is not true for people like Johnny Erickson Tata who for the past 55 years of her life has been paralyzed from the shoulders down she deals with intense physical and emotional pain every single day of her life and not long ago she wrote this in Christianity Today when God sent a broken neck my way, he blew out the lamps in my life that lit up the here and now and made it so capital. Captivating. The dark despair of total and permanent paralysis that followed wasn't much fun, but it sure made heaven come alive.

33:12Johnny did not agree with Kenny. And it's not true for the vast majority of Christians all around the world today whose lives look a lot different than ours. They have far less than we have. They are persecuted on a near daily basis. It is not true for them. They don't agree with Kenny. They do want to go to heaven, and they do want to go right now. But for most of us, we, if we're honest, have a harder time praying with Paul, Jesus, my desire is to go and be with you. I think that would be far better. It would be better to leave this world and be with you.

33:59And I think that's because our lives are so comfortable. It's because it's tough for us to imagine what far better could even mean. So as we meditate on Jesus' desire to be with him, for us to be with him, and to see his glory that he had with the Father before the foundation of the world, we should ask ourselves: do I have that same desire? Do I long to be with Jesus and see his glory the way that he longs for me to be with him and to see his glory?

34:40And if we don't feel that way, then maybe we should ask: what is it that is dampening our passion and our affection for him? What's distracting us? What's keeping us from longing for heaven the way that Jesus models that we should long for it? And Paul models the way that we should long for it. And Johnny models the way that we should long for it. What's distracting us, dampening our desire, keeping us from those things? And friends, if we bring it back to evangelism, which is a major focus of this passage, could it be that the reason so many people seem uninterested in heaven is because many Christians don't seem that interested in heaven either.

35:37Let's end with verses 25 and 26. O righteous Father, even though the world does not know you, I know you, and these know that you have sent me. I made known to them your name, and I will continue to make it known, that the love with which you have loved me may be in them. And I in them. In these final two verses, Jesus doesn't make any requests. He just makes a series of statements. And I want you to make note of three truths as we close. First, Jesus refers to God as righteous Father.

36:23Righteous, perfectly just Father. And remember, this prayer is being prayed only hours before he is betrayed, arrested, mocked, scourged, beaten, and crucified. Just hours before all of those things happen to him, he calls God righteous Father. All of those things happened according to whatever God's hand and plan had predestined to take place, as we learn later in Acts chapter 4. Friends, God is gracious and merciful, but he is also perfectly just. And there was no way for him to forgive our sin and to be righteous unless someone paid the penalty for it. Jesus died in our place and for our sins so that it could be seen that God is perfectly righteous and he lets no sin go unpunished. Jesus was crucified in our place for our sins so that God could be both the just And the justifier of those who believe.

37:36Second, Jesus continues to reveal the Father to the world. Jesus continues to reveal the Father to the world. He states again that the world doesn't know God, but Jesus does, and He has revealed Him to the disciples. And as we've seen all throughout the passage, the purpose of our unity, the purpose of Jesus' prayer is so that we would all be one, even as they are one. He's going to continue to reveal Himself to the world. And the way that He's going to do that first in just a few hours is through His death, through His crucifixion. His death on the cross in our place would display His justice and His righteousness, His mercy and His grace to all of the world. His resurrection would prove that God the Father accepted His sacrifice on our behalf, that all who believe in Him could be reconciled and forgiven and justified through faith.

38:38And then the Spirit of God and the Word of God together would be used, and Jesus would continue to make the Father's name known through the spoken and written testimony of these first disciples. And then through our testimony, hundreds and hundreds of years later, Jesus would continue to make the Father known. And then, third and finally, Jesus revealed the Father so that his love would be in us. After Jesus rose from the grave, he ascended into heaven. And he ascended into heaven so that, as he talked about in the previous chapters in the upper room here, so that he could send the Holy Spirit to us, our helper, our counselor, our advocate.

39:33And when we believe, we receive the Holy Spirit. And do you know what the first fruit of the Spirit is listed in Galatians chapter 5? Love. Love. Back in verse 24, Jesus said the Father loved him before the foundation of the world. A couple chapters ago, he said, greater love has no one than this, that a man lay down his life for his friends. And now here in verse 26, Jesus is saying that through his death, he's going to reveal the Father's love and his own love for us, so that through his resurrection and the gift of the Holy Spirit, that same love can reside in our hearts forever.

40:22Friends, Jesus said in our text today that the world does not know God. The world has many different Ideas and hopes and opinions about God. But I think we can all agree that ideas and hopes and opinions don't matter much if they're wrong. Truth is what corresponds to reality. And Jesus said in our passage today, as He did many times in His ministry, that He came to reveal the Father to the disciples so that the disciples could reveal the Father and the Son to the world.

41:04And if you don't know God the Father, but you would like to know God the Father, then I invite you to look around and consider what you see before you today. To look around this room and see a group of people with little in common except our belief that Jesus is the Son of God and that He lived a sinless life on our behalf so that He could offer Himself in our place and for our sins. That through His death and resurrection, we could be reconciled and adopted into God's family.

41:51We are united by those beliefs, and we are united by our commitment to follow Jesus together. And our hope and unity and love for each other should give you an accurate picture of what God is like and what his gospel says. Inevitably, though, you will also see inconsistencies among us. We will fail to live in unity at times. We will fail to love each other at times. And that's because we are not a perfect people. But here's the thing: we don't claim to be, we just claim to serve a perfect God.

42:37Jesus did not come for the healthy, he came for the sick. And so, if you see yourself that way and in those terms, not as someone who is healthy and is not in need of salvation, but as one who is sick and as one who needs a Savior, then we invite you to believe in Jesus and to join us as those who believe in Jesus, who are part of the people of God through repentance and faith.

43:10If you're here today and you're already a Christian, then I hope that Jesus' prayer was a great comfort and encouragement today. This passage is a great challenge, especially for our evangelism. But I want you to remember that this passage is also a great encouragement that our evangelism together Will be successful. You personally may not lead that coworker or that classmate, that colleague, that family member to faith in Christ. But, friends, this passage is an encouragement and it's a promise that our witness together means that many will come to faith in Jesus.

43:54Our unity, our love, the way that we live our lives together will point people to Him. You know, many times people say things like, You look just like your dad, or you look just like your mom. And what we see in this passage is that when we live in unity and love, that's what the world is going to say: you look just like your Heavenly Father. So, friends, let's continue to pray and work to maintain the unity of the Spirit in the bond of peace because Christian unity persuasively points the world to God and His gospel. Let's pray.

44:52Father, we thank you for the comfort of this passage. That Jesus long before we were ever born thought of us and prayed for us. And we look at the content of this passage, we can see how his prayers have been answered across the centuries in many churches, but here and now in our church. We pray for our unity and love that we would be an accurate representation of you and your gospel to this watching world. In Christ's name we pray. Amen.

45:39Thank you for listening to the sermon audio from New Life Baptist Church in College Station, Texas. For more information or to support our ministry, visit us online at newlifecs.net.