Truth For Life

Guest (Male): Welcome to Truth for Life where today we're resuming our study of Jesus' high priestly prayer by considering his final request, which was not for himself but for those whom God had given to him. Are you included in that group? Well, think about your answer as Alistair Begg teaches from John chapter 17. We're focusing on verse 24.

Alistair Begg: The 24th verse reads, "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." It is an immense privilege for us to listen in as Jesus prays. We are taken, as it were, into the closet with Jesus here, and we hear him as he intercedes. The clarity with which he addresses the Father is unmistakable.

This is his final request in this prayer. There are still verses 25 and 26, but verse 24 is his final request. Jesus' own desire is here. What does he desire? He has prayed already for his disciples' protection, he's been praying for their sanctification, he's been praying for their unity that the world might know, and here, he prays expressly that they might see his glory.

Now, let's just first of all notice something very straightforwardly: that Jesus' own desire is selfless. It is selfless. I don't know about you, but often as I pray, I'm always asking God for things that are going to directly affect me or mine and so on. It's not wrong to do, but it declares something of our focus. Jesus, you will notice here, prays in a selfless way.

We can see that by just allowing our eyes to go beyond the end of chapter 17 and into chapter 18 because there we read that when Jesus had spoken these words—the words that we're just reading now—he went out with his disciples across the Brook Kidron, where there was a garden which he and his disciples entered. And then what follows there is the story of the betrayal of Jesus, the arrest of Jesus, the scorn that was meted out upon him, the abuse that he suffered, the nails that he bore, and the cross on which he was crucified. All of that is in the offing as Jesus brings this prayer to an end.

I think it would be fair to say that he has a lot on his mind, and yet in these moments, his concern is not for all that he is about to face. It is rather for those on whose behalf he is about to face it. Now, these individuals—and I tried to point this out as I was reading—these individuals are those whom the Father has given to him. You will notice that this is his focus here: "I desire that they also whom you have given me may be with me."

And this phrase comes again and again in this. If you go back up to verse two, for example, "since you have given him authority over all flesh to give eternal life to all whom you have given him." It comes again and again down in verse nine: "I am praying not for the world but for those you have given me." You see it again in verse 11: "which you have given me, that they may be one." In verse 12 again: "While I was with them, I kept them in your name, which you have given me."

Obviously, Jesus is focused on this. He is absolutely clear that his concern is for those that have been given to him. When we study the "I Am"s, we find ourselves in John chapter six, and we pause there purposefully for this very same reason. If you go to John chapter six, you will see that this is exactly the focus of Jesus. For this is the will of my Father, that everyone who looks on the Son and believes in him should have eternal life, and I will raise him up on the last day.

Now, you need to allow your eyes to go up to verse 37: "All that the Father gives me will come to me, and whoever comes to me I will never cast out, for I haven't come down from heaven to do my own will but the will of him who sent me." Jesus' desire is not only selfless in focusing on the concerns of his own, but it is also specific. And we know it's specific because he tells us exactly what it is. "This is my desire, Father," he says, "that those whom you have given me may be with me," may share his company.

Jesus is not just giving us access, as it were, into the company. He actually wants us to be with him, to spend time with him, to know him. At the beginning of the Gospels, he makes this clear. It's in Mark, and it says of Jesus that he went up onto a mountain and he called to him those whom he desired, and he appointed twelve that they might be with him.

The perplexity that we see when we go through John's Gospel on the part of the disciples in the prospect of being without Jesus—you remember in our studies in the conversation where Jesus says, "I'm going away and I'm going somewhere you can't come." And the immediate response is to say to one another, "What does he mean that he's going away?" Essentially, what they're saying is they can't imagine life without him. They have known him in this way. He has taught them, they've walked with him, and now he's gone. "Where I am going," he says to them, "you cannot come."

And then in his grace and in his tenderness, in the very next chapter—because I'm quoting from the end of chapter 13—he says to them in chapter 14, "Don't let your hearts be troubled. You believe in God, believe also in me. In my Father's house are many mansions or rooms. If it weren't so, I would have told you. I wouldn't have told you that I'm going to prepare a place for you if I wasn't. And if I go and prepare a place for you, I will come again and receive you unto myself." Notice the relational aspect of that. I will not just bring you into the department, as it were. I will not just have you in the building. I will not just have you in the room. I will have you to myself.

How can Jesus have us all to himself? How can each of us in our prayers on a daily basis draw near to Jesus? It is a great mystery, but it is the promise. That's what he's praying for. And if the disciples were tempted at all to wonder at his promise in John 14, here it is underpinned. I imagine as they hear him saying these words, somebody nudges him and says, "So that thing that he said in chapter 14 about being with him, that's a certainty." It is underpinned. The promise of Jesus is underpinned by his prayer.

Now, let's just think about this for a moment. Christianity is all about Jesus. Nobody needs to know Buddha personally. Nobody can know Buddha personally, nor Krishna, nor Mohammed. You may find their graves and find their bones, but you cannot know them. You cannot meet them. You read the pages of the Bible and what you discover is this amazing claim that is underscored here by Jesus' prayer. That's why when Paul thinks about this in his writing to the Philippians, he says, "I'd like to come and see you. I don't know if I'll see you. I don't know what's going to happen to me. I don't know if I will die and go to be with Christ, which is better by far."

Where do you go when you die? Paul says when I die, as a man in Christ, I will go to be with Jesus. When he writes to the Thessalonians, he underscores it for them. He says to them, "You may be confident in this: that we will always be with the Lord." What is Jesus praying specifically here? This: "I pray, Father, that those whom you have given me might be with me." This is the language of love. This is the reality for the Christian.

Bruce Milne describes this scene in these words: "As the last grains of sand trickle through the hourglass before Jesus' rendezvous with darkness, gazing across the rolling eons of the future, he anticipates the embrace of his beloved bride in the glory that is to be." What a picture. "Father, I am coming to you." His pathway to the Father is through suffering and through the cross. He is then raised up in triumph over the grave. He ascends to the Father, and in that context, he awaits us when we come.

That's why I pause to say something to somebody who may be asking the question: "I'm not sure where I am in relationship to this." The way the Bible speaks about it, the way Paul particularly speaks about it, he speaks about being "in Christ," then living our lives "for Christ," looking forward to the day when we will be "with Christ." But only those will be with Christ in that day who are in Christ in this day.

Richard Baxter wrote the hymn, and I quote it always because it's my only go-to when people ask me this question. His hymn begins: "Lord, it belongs not to my care whether I live or die." What he means in saying that is, "I'm not in charge of the length of my life. That's your department." Then he writes about the pilgrimage and his closing verse I find is as helpful as anything, and it fits this because he says, thinking of eternity, thinking of death, thinking of the valley of the shadow through which we go: "My knowledge of that life is small, the eye of faith is dim. It is enough that Christ knows all, and I shall be with him—with him."

His concern is specific in the company that he desires and in the glory that he wants them to see. "I want them to be with me to see my glory, the glory that you've given me." Now, this is vast as well. We could slow it down to a phrase if you would like. "Father, I desire"—the desires of Jesus, not for himself but for those who he has been given. Specifically that they might be where I am in order that they might see my glory.

The prologue of John's Gospel begins by John announcing the fact that we have seen his glory. The 14th verse of chapter one: "We have seen his glory, the glory as of the only begotten of the Father, full of grace and truth." It's in John that we have the first miracle at Cana of Galilee, and when he turns water into wine, John records, "This is the first of his signs, the signs that Jesus did at Cana in Galilee and manifested his glory." It caused people to go, "Wait a minute. You don't do that. That's not normal. You can't do that unless, of course, you're the Creator of the universe."

"We saw his glory," he says. The glory of God increasingly unveiled through the ministry of Jesus. By the time John is writing, of course, all of this is behind him. James, Peter, and John knew an amazing event had happened when they got hooked up with Elijah in the Mount of Transfiguration. It is there that they found him transformed before their eyes, his face shining like the sun and his clothes became white as light.

We have seen his glory. He wants us to know this glory, to see it. They've seen it in the cross, they've seen it in the resurrection. Incidentally, without the resurrection, we wouldn't even have a New Testament. There wouldn't be a page of the New Testament that would have ever been written were it not for the fact that Jesus is alive. Why would anybody write this stuff down if everything came to a crashing halt on Good Friday and all the claims that this Jesus had made were all spurious and irrelevant? No. The reason we have it is because Jesus is alive, and because he is alive, we will see him.

When you read the Old Testament, you find anticipations of this. Psalm 17 verse 15, David writes at the end of that psalm: "As for me, I shall behold your face in righteousness; when I awake, I will be satisfied with your likeness." What in the world are you talking about, David? What do you mean you will behold his face? That you will be satisfied with his likeness? Whose face? Whose likeness? The likeness of Jesus. We have little glimpses of it as we're going through. We are being transformed from one degree of glory into another, but there is a day coming when we will see him and we will be like him.

We must stop. Jesus' desire is a selfless desire. It is a specific desire, and the source is found in the love of the Father for his Son, a love before the foundation of the world. The Father loves the Son and the Son loves the Father. In chapter 14 of John, Jesus says, "I am doing all these things in order that the world might know that I love the Father." You can spend your life pondering the thought of an eternal conversation between the Father, the Son, and the Holy Spirit. The glory that the Father gave the Son arises out of the love with which the Father loved the Son before the foundation of the world.

J.C. Ryle says this is a very deep saying and contains things far above our full comprehension. No doubt. The person says, "Well, I won't believe unless I can get it all buttoned down, unless I can understand everything. You see, I'm a scientist, I'm a rational thinker and so on." Good. Bring all your rationality, all your thinking, all your investigating to the scriptures. Come humbly. It's a low entry at the gate of heaven.

What we're being told is that one day we will gaze upon Christ. It's hard to fathom this stuff, isn't it? We will refract the light that comes from Jesus, which he mediates, that which is sourced in the Father. Now you're starting to make it up? No, no. Why would I make it up? Nobody makes stuff like this up. Revelation chapter 21 and verse 22: "And I saw no temple in the city, for its temple is the Lord God the Almighty and the Lamb."

Where does God dwell with men? Will God really dwell with men? asked Solomon. Yes, he will. Where? Well, in a temple in Jerusalem it was, in an ark it was and so on, but no longer there. The dwelling place of God is with men, and we are brought into him and live in him. That's why there was no temple in the city. The city has no need of sun or moon to shine on it. Where's the light coming from? For the glory of God gives it light, and its lamp is the Lamb. Who's the Lamb? The one who takes away the sin of the world.

Where's the source? In God the Father. Where is it manifested? In God the Son. By its light will the nations walk, and the kings of the earth will bring their glory into it, and its gate will never be shut by day and there will be no night there. They will bring into it the glory and the honor of the nations and so on. There is no doubt that we find ourselves gloriously out of our depths in the wonder of God. The story of the Bible is an amazing symphony. It's a great symphony of redemption. It has wonderful little melody lines in it here and there. It swells and it ebbs and it flows like the great symphonies of our world, and eventually, it comes to a great crescendo.

It is in that crescendo that we then bow down and say with the Apostle Paul, as he pondered these things: "Oh, the depth of the riches and wisdom and knowledge of God! How unsearchable are his judgments and how inscrutable his ways!" When he was just in his early 20s, Spurgeon at the New Park Street Chapel in Southwark, London, on the 7th of January 1855, says essentially this to his congregation: "This is a subject that is so vast that all our thoughts may be lost in its immensity. It is so deep that our pride is then dethroned in its infinity."

And so he says to his congregation: "Would you lose your sorrow? Would you drown your cares? Then go plunge yourself in the Godhead's deepest sea. I know of nothing which can so comfort the soul, so calm the swelling billows of grief, and so speak peace to the winds of trial as a devout musing upon the subject of the Godhead." God the Father loves the Son, gives to the Son that which is the heritage of history and of the nations, when a company that no one can number from every race, tribe, language and so on, gathers there. It is the utterly undeserved privilege of all who in repentance and in faith would turn to Jesus and say: "I come to you. I need you. I believe in you. Include me. I want to be with you."

You don't have to say "I want to be in church." When you're with Jesus, you'll be in church. But the invitation is not to church. It's not to religion. It's not to a theological framework. It is to Jesus. I hope we understand that.

Guest (Male): You're listening to Alistair Begg on Truth for Life. You just heard Alistair quote Charles Spurgeon at the end of his message. He frequently quotes this 19th-century preacher who had a profound influence on his own faith and teaching, and today we are recommending a book written by Spurgeon. It's a 30-day devotional titled "Your Only Comfort: Devotions for Hope in Suffering." This is actually a new collection of 30 excerpts mined from Spurgeon's library. They address the topic of hardship and how we endure it from a biblical perspective.

Spurgeon was well acquainted with struggles and difficulties in his own life. He suffered from a number of painful medical conditions over many years and also battled extended seasons of depression. And so when he preached about suffering, he did it from firsthand experience. In this book, you'll read what Spurgeon had to say about why God allows those he loves to suffer, what we're to learn from it, and how to get through it without losing hope or faith.

Again, the title is "Your Only Comfort: Devotions for Hope in Suffering." The book is yours by request when you donate today to Truth for Life. You can give a gift through the mobile app or online at truthforlife.org/donate or call us at 888-588-7884. Thanks for joining us today. Since Jesus died to reconcile us to God, what is it that keeps some people from ever knowing his salvation? Tomorrow we'll hear the answer. The Bible teaching of Alistair Begg is furnished by Truth for Life, where the learning is for living.