Truth For Life

Bob Lepine: Welcome to Truth for Life, where we're taking a close look at Jesus' high priestly prayer, which is found in chapter 17 of John's Gospel. You may have wondered why Jesus didn't just pray that God would take His disciples out of the world. Why doesn't He deliver them from the suffering and trials that are ahead for them? Well, today Alistair Begg walks us through how the Bible responds to that question.

Alistair Begg: The reaction of the world to the disciples who have received the word, it's there straightforwardly: "The world has hated them." He says, "Father, I gave them your word—the word that you gave me. They've received it, and as a result, they're hated." Why are they hated? Why would the disciples be hated? Well, because they're in alignment with the Father and with the Son.

If you allow yourself to fast forward and think about what it meant after the resurrection of Jesus, chapter 5 of Acts, where the apostles are being told not to do the work of mission. By verse 40, they've taken a jolly good beating. Verse 40 of chapter 5: "And so they called the apostles in and they decided let's just beat them. And they beat them and charged them again not to speak in the name of Jesus, and then they let them go."

And they all went away and had a pity party on their own and got themselves an ice cream cone? No. "Then they left the presence of the council"—here we go, inappropriate joy—"they left the council rejoicing that they were counted worthy to suffer dishonor for His name."

Whenever the disciple of Jesus, whether in the 1st century or the 21st century, whenever the disciple proclaims this word, presents the truth, and by so doing exposes the plight of our neighbors and friends of contemporary man, whenever we are prepared to do that, we're not actually welcomed. We're hated.

Now, people may not say things like, "I hate you," but you will find that you are sidelined, that you are excluded, that you're damned by faint praise. People say things either to you or behind you: "Well, I can see how that would be something that you would need." They hate the thought that it is something that they might need.

For if there is salvation in no one else save in Jesus, then the something that we proclaim, the someone whom we follow, is saying to our friends and neighbors, "Without Him, you are lost. Without Him, you are enslaved. Without Him, you are without hope and without God in the world." "Oh no, we believe in God." If you do not believe in Jesus, you do not actually believe in God.

The apostles were really clear: "We must obey God." And we must obey God. We're not at liberty to rewrite the Bible so that people will like us, to accommodate the perspectives and positions of a world that is alien to the truth of God. Part of our problem in dealing with these things is that we don't have a biblical understanding of what it means to be without Christ, that we don't have a biblical understanding of the nature of the world in which we live.

The world, Romans 8, is at enmity with God. The world is actually opposed to God. In its projections and convictions and expressions in lifestyle, it is saying, "We will not have a God to rule over us. We will create our own idols. We will fashion them—those that we can handle and can handle us."

I don't want to delay on it, but let's just put it in concrete terms at the moment, this idea of the way in which the world hates biblical truth and Christian conviction. Think about it in relationship to a biblical view of life: the origin of life, the nature of life, the sanctity of life. The world is opposed to that. It actually hates that notion.

Because what it says is, "I am accountable to someone up and out and beyond myself." I don't want to be accountable to anybody except myself. I don't want you or anybody else—and certainly not your God—to tell me what I can do with my life. Think about it in relationship to death.

The fascinating thing for me in all of those—and I've read a lot about it lately because it is so prevalent—the fascinating thing is whatever your view is of the way that life ends, the one thing that is missing from the perspective of the world is the notion of judgment. That we will actually stand before God, and the God to whom we are accountable because He made us for Himself. We're not like that; we're living for ourselves.

Whatever way you die, it is appointed unto man once to die, and after this comes the judgment. People hate that. "You can't possibly be telling me that." What about marriage? What about family? What about education? What about gender? What about just about anything?

You say, "Well, why would you apply it in that way? Surely there are bigger issues than the issues that you're referencing here." Do you remember what Luther said about where the battle ensues is where you find the real soldier?

You see, 40 years ago, when we were all reading books like *The Battle for the Bible*, all the argument was in relationship to the veracity of the Scriptures, the historical reality, and so on. That battle was fought, and in some ways, we might say it was largely won. But that battle has been replaced by an entirely different battle.

The real question of whether there is an authoritative God, whether there is a Creator God, whether there is an absolute morality, whether there is an absolutely flawless truth, ultimate truth—that's where the battle is being fought. And listen to Luther:

"If I profess with loudest voice and clearest exposition every portion of the truth of God except that little point which the world and the devil are at that moment attacking, I'm not confessing Christ, however boldly I may be professing Christ. Where the battle rages, there the loyalty of the soldier is proved. And to be steady on all the battlefield besides is mere flight and disgrace if he flinches at that point." It seems to make sense, doesn't it?

So, the reception of the disciples to the word, the reaction of the world to that reception, and then the explanation that is provided by Jesus right there in the text: Why is it that the world has reacted in that way? Why is it that an alien world does what it does? Well, "they're hated because they're not of the world, just as I am not of the world."

Well, we know that is true of Jesus. We sometimes sing, "From heaven You came, helpless babe, entered our world Your glory veiled." We understand that to be true of Jesus. He was the true light that gives light that was coming into the world, coming into the world that He had made.

Jesus was actually never of this world. He entered this world in order that those whom the Father gives Him might be removed from this world. He has come down, if you like, in order that we might go up. He has entered into the ignominy and shame of a world that is in rebellion against God in order that He might bear the curse that God the Father expresses in all of His wrath so that those who rest in His provision may find themselves taken to a different place.

Now, it seems to me very straightforward—and I hope to you, too—once, by natural birth, these disciples for whom Jesus prays were of the world. But now, as a result of the new birth, although they are to remain in it, they are no longer of it. And as a result, the world now views the followers of Jesus as actually traitors and renegades. And as a result, it has no time for them and actually hates them.

If you think about this for any length of time at all, you realize—and it's important that we keep in mind—this is not some kind of hatred because you're just a jolly nuisance because you tailgate people, or because you've been making a royal nuisance of yourself in the neighborhood because you don't like Mr. Jenkins' tree leaning on your property. That's got nothing to do with this stuff; that's just because you're a bad person. This is not this.

This is the transformation. Here is Paul in Ephesians: "You were dead in trespasses and sins in which you once walked, following the course of this world." You were just doing what comes naturally, following the prince of the power of the air, the spirit that's now at work in the sons of disobedience.

Why do people do all these things? Because the spirit of the prince of the power of this air is at work in the sons of disobedience—daughters, too—among whom we all once lived in the passions of our flesh, carrying out the desires of the body and the mind, and were by nature children of wrath like the rest of mankind.

But what has happened? God, being rich in mercy, because of the great love with which He loved us, even when we were dead in our trespasses, made us alive together with Christ. He reached down and took us out of the realm of darkness and brought us into the realm of light. He radically intervened in the predicament, in our circumstances.

Peter does what Paul does in chapter 4 of his first letter, again describing the difference: "For the time that is past suffices for doing what the pagans want to do." Which is what? "Living in sensuality, passions, drunkenness, orgies, drinking parties, and lawless idolatry. With respect to this, they are surprised when you do not join them in the same flood of debauchery, and they malign you."

If you're going to go in your office party to the strip joints with them, they will like you. They will say, "Now, this is the kind of Christianity that excites us." Because what it does is it says to them, "There is nothing immoral, there is nothing wrong in this; it's entirely understandable."

But when—if you were once there, as some of us may well have been—when that is an old life for us and the new life has come and we say, "No, no, no," and they say, "Oh, you're not in that Jesus thing again, are you? You're not starting that again?" They hate you. Who do you want to be loved by? You want to be loved for the right reasons and hated for the right reasons.

So, having been chosen out of the world, they no longer share—we no longer share—its opinions and its practices. Because the world, as I've said, that was made by God is in rebellion against God, and therefore the life of the Christian in the world is ultimately a life of conflict. Why? Because the same grace that reconciles us to God antagonizes us to the evil one. That we have become a friend of God and an enemy of Satan.

And his opposition is there. And so it is, Jesus says—and this is actually His prayer; so far it's been a description—but what is His prayer? Part one: "I do not ask that you take them out of the world."

I remember at school, sometimes in peculiar circumstances at the grammar school in Ilkley, I would say to the teacher, "Is there any chance that we could leave early today?" And it’s like, "Begg, why don’t you just sit there and be quiet?" I said, "No, it would be good. We could leave. Look, it’s a nice day, we could go. Let us leave early. Come on!" Well, it never happened.

There were three people in the Old Testament who made a similar request, not to get out of school but to get out of life. There's a prize if you know who they were: Moses, Elijah, and Jonah. And all three of them asked if they could be removed, and the request was denied in each case.

In the same way, far from the notion of being whisked out of this to live in a monastery or to live high on a hill, all in a little collection of our own, Jesus says, "No, I'm not asking that. I'm actually asking that they wouldn't be removed, but that they would be involved."

You may have wondered—someone was talking earlier in the day—you may have wondered why, when we trust in Jesus, we're not immediately glorified. I mean, that would be good: you believe and you're gone. Do not pass go, do not collect $200, just go straight there. Done. Why not?

Why are we not immediately delivered from sin's implications? Why are we not immediately delivered from sickness, from suffering, from weakness, from infection? Why are we not actually delivered from death itself in its entirety so that those who believe in Jesus would never actually physically die at all but we would just be translated?

What's the answer to those kind of questions? The answer is that God knows what He's doing, that His way is best. So that our earthly pilgrimage, whether short or long, in trials, in perplexities, in problems, we come to know God in a way that we could not know God in any other way at all.

In other words, we learn along with Andraé Crouch from a long time ago: "If I never had a problem, I'd never know that God could solve them. I'd never know what faith in God could do. Through it all, through it all, I've learned to trust in Jesus. I've learned to trust in God. Through it all."

Thank You for not taking us out. Thank You for leaving us here. Thank You for keeping Your disciples there so that they might in their generation proclaim the gospel, so that the gospel might fan out from the Middle East into Europe and to the very ends of the earth, so that this morning we are the beneficiaries of the fulfillment of the prayer of Jesus in John 17. "Father, do not take them out of the world." We should all say hallelujah to that, that He didn't do that, and here we are.

"Don't take them out of the world, rather keep them from the evil one." Verse 16 simply repeats verse 14, the emphasis of repetition. But "Father, I pray that You would keep them from the evil one."

Well, when they heard that, they surely paused. The departure of Judas and the soon denial of Peter left them in no doubt that there's a battle involved. Peter, when he writes his first letter, remember he says to people that the devil is a roaring lion looking for someone to devour.

When Paul writes to the Ephesians, he ends his Ephesian letter with the same emphasis: "We're not wrestling against flesh and blood, but against spiritual wickedness in the heavenly places." When John in his letter writes, he says, "We know that we are from God, and the whole world lies in the power of the evil one."

Therefore, to pray along with Christ this prayer, as we do incidentally when we pray the Lord's Prayer, we are actually asking: "Lead us not into temptation, but deliver us from the evil one." And it is the ultimate in naivety if we think that to live for Jesus is just a walk in the park.

Don Carson, in a wonderful sentence or two, says, "The spiritual dimensions of Jesus' prayer are consistent and overwhelming. By contrast, we spend much more time today praying about our health, our projects, our decisions, our finances, our family, and even our games—more time in that than in praying about the danger of the evil one."

I don't think there can be any doubt at all that the fact that many of us are still following Jesus today is on account of the prayers of people who have actually prayed these things for us. "Father, watch her, keep her. Help him, keep him. Don't let him become another statistic in the collapse of evangelical pastoral ministry." It must be the prayers, which is great.

I feel bad that I haven't given you a song from my childhood, so here it is. I had one for you last week; this is this week's one:

"There's a fight to be fought, there's a race to be run, there are dangers to meet on the way. And the Lord is my life, and the Lord is my light, and the Lord is my strength and stay. On His word I depend, He's my Savior and friend, and He tells me to trust and obey. For the Lord is my light, and the Lord is my life, and the Lord is my strength and stay."

Don't waver in the battle, looking unto Jesus, the author and the finisher of our faith. A brief moment of silence, and then we'll sing a song that reminds us that God is dealing with us moment by moment and day by day. Just ask God that we might have the word of God, the things that He wants us to know, to believe, to trust, that they might be sealed in our hearts and they might be anchored in our thinking.

Our Father in heaven, we do pray that You would lead us not into temptation, but that You will keep us from evil and from the evil one. And thank You for the assurance that we have that You know exactly what You're doing, what You're doing with us in all the facets of our life and all the facets of our life together as a congregation. In this we rest, and in Christ's name we pray. Amen.

Bob Lepine: You're listening to Truth for Life. That is Alistair Begg helping us see why God chooses to involve believers in His plan rather than removing us from the world. I hope you're finding this study of Jesus' high priestly prayer in John's Gospel beneficial. If you've missed any of the messages in this series, you can catch up. Go to truthforlife.org/john17. The entire series is free to stream or watch or share.

In addition, if you'd like to dive deeper into this important section of Scripture, the *High Priestly Prayer* series comes with a study guide that'll help you or your small group unpack all that Jesus said so you can apply it to your life. The study guide is free to download. Go to the same link; again, it's truthforlife.org/john17.

As we've been considering Jesus' words in this prayer to His Father, maybe you're feeling like your own prayer life isn't what it ought to be. If, like many of us, you struggle with what to say when you pray, or maybe you feel like you're saying the same things about the same things over and over again, today we're featuring a tremendously helpful book that will transform your prayer life.

It's called *Praying the Bible*. This is a brief hardcover book that teaches you how to use the words of Scripture as the basis for your prayers. The book of Psalms, for example, is a profoundly rich collection of prayers and meditations. *Praying the Bible* outlines an easy-to-use method of personalizing the Psalms to make your prayer time a richer, more meaningful time of communion with God.

You can request your copy of the book *Praying the Bible* today when you donate to support Truth for Life. You can give a gift online securely at truthforlife.org/donate or call us at 888-588-7884.

I'm Bob Lepine. Thanks for joining us today. Tomorrow we'll return to Jesus' high priestly prayer to take a closer look at the identity and strategy of the devil. The Bible teaching of Alistair Begg is furnished by Truth for Life, where the learning is for living.