Truth For Life

Guest (Male): When Jesus concluded his high priestly prayer, he asked that the Father’s love would extend to his followers. Today on Truth For Life, we'll find out how that happens and what it means when we receive Jesus' love. Alistair Begg is wrapping up our study in John 17.

Alistair Begg: We considered 26 last time. We didn't get very far. We stopped really immediately in a consideration of what it means to say I made known to them your name. And we tried to understand that the name of God is actually an expression of who God is and that in reality, the name of God gives to us God. We then went on to understand that Jesus says it is this name that I have made known to them. And that really was all that we took time for.

And so last time we began to scratch the surface, and this morning we scratch it a little bit further. Jesus is addressing as we saw last time his followers. They live in a world that doesn't know God, verse 25. And they are actually hated by the people in the world in which they live. We noted last time, actually, John’s statement, we know that you came from God.

And we know too that the whole world is in the power of the evil one. That the creator of the universe is the one from whom we are alienated on account of our sin. And now in that person, we have the privilege of listening as he, the incarnate God, one with the Father and the Spirit in all of eternity, is now addressing his Father. And we might say respectfully that he has us on his mind or in his heart. And he's explaining, Father, I made your name known.

And then he says, and I will continue to make it known. This is where we pick up. I will continue to make it known. That is an interesting statement because Jesus now for quite a period of time in the chapter's time, from 14 at least, he has been preparing the disciples for the fact that he's going to be gone.

I am going away. I know that you could be unsettled by this, but the fact is I will be gone. Well you say to yourself, if he's going to be gone, how is he then going to fulfill this? I will continue to make his name known. If he's not here, how will he make his name known? I suggest to you in three ways.

Number one: in the immediate events that follow from John 17. In the immediate events that follow, he will continue to make the name of the Father known. Then secondly, in the time between the resurrection and the ascension. If you think about it, if Jesus had risen from the tomb and gone immediately to heaven, things would have been vastly different, wouldn't they? And purposefully that has not taken place. And in that time between his resurrection and his final departure to heaven, recorded for us at the end of the Gospels and the beginning of Acts, what does he do? He makes sure that he makes the name of the Father known.

You remember the story in Luke 24, the fellows are making their way to Emmaus. They've decided that the journey with Jesus had been an exciting journey but had pretty well hit the skids and it was all over. Jesus draws beside them. He's in conversation with them. He keeps himself from them. It must have been relatively humorous, I would think.

Because they say the things that have been happening in Jerusalem. Jesus says, what things have been happening in Jerusalem? And they say, are you the only person in Jerusalem that doesn't know what has been happening? Now that's funny, at least from where I'm standing. This is irony at its very best.

And then in the context of that, Jesus says to them, you foolish ones. You're slow of heart to believe all that the prophets have spoken. Was it not necessary that the Christ should suffer these things and enter into his glory? And beginning with Moses and all the prophets, he interpreted to them in all the scriptures the things concerning himself. What an unbelievable Bible study. I mean, that is the great Bible study.

And then of course he follows it up as we read when he appears to his disciples later on and he makes the very same point. He said to them, these are my words that I spoke to you while I was still with you. That everything written about me in the law of Moses and the prophets and the psalms might be fulfilled. And then he opened their minds so that they might understand the scriptures and he was in that continuing to make the purposes of the Father known.

So one in terms of the immediacy of the events that follow. Secondly in the time between the resurrection and the ascension, and thirdly post-ascension, after the ascension. Because what Jesus had promised them suddenly came to light. John 15 and verse 26, I know that you are dealing with all kinds of things he says, and but you need to know that the helper is going to come. And when the helper comes, that's the Holy Spirit whom I will send to you from the Father, the Spirit of truth who proceeds from the Father, he will bear witness about me and you also will bear witness because you have been with me from the beginning.

If your Bible happens to be open there, you'll see the 12th verse of chapter 16 of John where he says I still have many things to say to you, but you cannot bear them now. It was impossible for them to be able to process the material that Jesus could have given them. What was the missing link, if you like? It was the coming of the Holy Spirit.

So verse 13, when the Spirit of truth comes, he will guide you into all truth. For he will not speak on his own authority, but whatever he hears he will speak and will declare to you the things that are to come. He will glorify me, for he will take what is mine and declare it to you. All that the Father has is mine, therefore I said that he will take what is mine and declare it to you.

Now when you go out from here and you realize how his word will continue to be made known, the fact is that the apostles will get out into the streets of Jerusalem and they will understand and declare what previously they hadn't known. So that Peter who had a grasp of some good stuff and a grasp of some stuff he could have left alone, with which many of us can identify.

How is it that then after Jesus has gone, he is able to stand up in the streets of Jerusalem and explain that what we read in the 118th Psalm, the stone that the builders rejected has become the cornerstone. Now he's teaching the Bible. He's teaching the Old Testament. He says that stone is Jesus, just so you know. And there is salvation in no one else under all of heaven. It's not possible because that stone is Jesus himself.

And when that grips the church, then they want to make that known. And then we're told why that matters so that, and this brings us to the end of the study. It doesn't say so that, it simply says that. The inference is therefore, so that. I will continue to make it known, to what end? That the love with which you have loved me may be in them and I in them.

Here he is loving them all the way to the end. And the love to which he refers here in the 26th verse is not our love to God. Notice, it is God's love to us. That the love with which you have loved me, he says to the Father, might be in them and I in them. That is dramatic and is vitally important.

I'm glad it doesn't say that their love for you might be the key. Because if we're honest, our love towards God and towards one another actually ebbs and flows on all kinds of bases. That is not the ground of our security. That is not the basis of our understanding of things. If that was the case, we could never have sung I am his and he is mine, loved with everlasting love. What love? The love that the Father had for the Son has been manifested in Jesus so that we might know that love. That God is love, and that the greatest assurance of his love has been in sending Jesus.

That's why we read again the Psalm 118, the steadfast love of the Lord never ceases. God's love is such that he doesn't give up on us. Why has he kept us? Because he loves us. Why is he sanctifying us? Because he loves us. Why does he want us to be united? Because he loves us. Why would he want us to share his glory? Because he loves us. It’s so obvious.

His love is unchangeable. His love is irreversible. How deep the Father’s love for us. The love that the Father has for the Son is the love that is to be shed abroad in our hearts by the Holy Spirit. That's Romans chapter 5, you can find it on your own. God's love has been poured into our hearts through the Holy Spirit who has been given to us.

Now what makes this so vitally important to understand is that this love is unknown apart from Christ. This love is unknown apart from Christ. The love of God before you trusted in Christ, the love of God was towards you. It was an initiative taking love. But it wasn't a love that was in you. It is only in Christ that this love is manifested and known.

That's why when we say to one another as we study the Bible, are you in Christ? Are you unreservedly caught up with Jesus? Have you trusted Jesus? Have you appropriated Jesus? Have you given yourself over to Jesus? The question is not about are you feeling like a Christian lately? Are you involved in religion? Did you attend a membership class? Have you been baptized? No, are you in Christ?

And if you are, then this love for which Jesus prays is shed abroad in your heart. It is a love that is unknown apart from Christ and Christ is unknown apart from this love. When Zechariah is speaking to the people of God and pointing them to the future, which is of course what prophets do, at one point in chapter 13 he speaks of a fountain being opened wide that will produce cleansing for the people of God as they turn to him. Which is an amazing picture. It's caught up in our hymnody very often. There is a fountain, a fountain. Perhaps we sing that tonight, I don't know, but there is a fountain filled with blood drawn from Emmanuel’s veins and sinners plunge beneath that flood lose all their guilty stains.

Christ he is the fountain, the deep sweet well of love, the streams on earth I've tasted more deep I'll drink above because we have been entrusted with this immense privilege. I in them. I in them. Christ in you, the hope of glory. Now notice as we draw this to a close that this is not provided for us here as a datum in history.

In other words, this is not something that Jesus is praying might be a sort of point along the journey. It is a reality in the present for which he prays. Not a memory from the past. It is actually to be a lived experience. To be existential. It has a historical origin. It has an eschatological anticipation. But it is to be an existential reality. He prayed for this.

People say you know I like such and such a hymn and I don't like such and such a hymn, and that's fine. I don't like all everybody's hymns either. But one of the hymns that I have found people react strongly to, it's more of a song than a hymn, is still worthy of consideration I think. People say well it's like a country song or it's sentimental. Maybe all of the above, goes like this.

I come to the garden alone while the dew is still on the roses. And the voice I hear falling on my ear the Son of God discloses. And he walks with me and he talks with me and he tells me I am his own. That's either a reality or it's a concoction.

Now when you think about it, God's love in Christ for us is the basis, is the ground of every other benefit that we enjoy. So for example if you take the hymn Great Is Thy Faithfulness and we sing pardon for sin and a peace that endureth, thine own dear presence to cheer and to guide. That pardon for sin, that peace, that presence is all grounded in the love that Jesus is referencing here.

In other words the love of God for us in this way however we might understand it and know it, it means more than the gifts of God or the opportunities for serving God or favorable occurrences in the pathway of faith. It is to know God the Father in the depth of our being by the Holy Spirit.

So that when everything else is taken away, when everything else shuts down, when you're alone by yourself with yourself and you realize whom have I in heaven but you? And on earth who really fills up the reality of my existence apart from you? It can't be your spouse. It can't be your kids. It can't be your service in the community of faith. It has to be God.

And that's what Jesus is praying. That the love, Father, that you have for me might be in them and I in them. You see the effect of God's love for us will be seen in the fact that he keeps us. It'll be seen in many ways but it'll be seen directly in that. The sense of God's love. People don't confuse the reality of God's promise being brought home to our hearts with whether we are quotes feeling it on a regular basis.

Because we know in the hymn writer again he helps us, days of darkness still come o'er us and sorrow’s paths we often tread. Of course we do. We don't always have that abiding sense of his presence. But it is the perpetual residence of Christ in our hearts which conveys the sense of this love for us. The perpetual residence of Christ in our hearts.

I know I mention this all the time. I don't apologize for it because it made such a mark on me when I was 23 in being in the early days of marriage and in the early days of ministry visiting the church plant in Wester Hailes, a housing scheme of Edinburgh. And encountering a young pastor there called Pastor Hardy who was in many ways a very unlikely person to be effective amongst young people. He was almost blind. He had Coca-Cola glasses. He wouldn't have known a football if it came at him at 100 miles an hour. He just, but God was on this guy.

And it is in that context that I've told you before that he taught these young people to sing things like love is the flag flown high from the castle of my heart for the king is in residence here. Well that makes sense. It's not saying I'm a very loving person. It says love is a flag that flies from my heart because of the presence of the king. It's a picture from Buckingham Palace really.

When the royal standard is there you know the king is present. If the standard is gone he's not present. Love flies. And then he taught the congregation, many of them out of drug abuse and gangs, to turn and face one another as I've told you before and to sing to one another I love you with the love of the Lord. Yes I love you with the love of the Lord.

Because I can see in you the glory of my king and I love you with the love of the Lord. Well that's essentially what we need. And that's the only way it actually works. It's only this love shed abroad in our heart, this love shed abroad in a congregation, this very love, the love for which Jesus prays, that can actually make transformative impact in a world because of people who go I can't believe these people actually love one another.

Where did they get that love from? Do they love each other because they're the same socio-economic background? Do they love each other because they like to sing the same songs? No, I can't explain it. I don't really know why they should. Sometimes they don't like each other and sometimes they disagree with each other, but you know what, they love each other. Where did that love come from? It's right here. The love with which you loved me may be in them and I in them.

The disciples needed to know that and I need to know that, so do you. Jesus says to them, hey guys I will take you to myself. Where are you going? Don't worry about where I'm going. I'll take you to myself. I mean that makes perfect sense, doesn't it?

My Father will love you and I will love you and we will come to you and make our home with you. There is no place of neutrality in terms of the claims of Jesus upon our lives. In antiquity, when a man set his affections on a woman, he would often not make the first entree himself. But he would send other men to the woman to explain to the woman that Joe over here loves you.

And he asked me to tell you that he loves you and to tell you that if you will accept his hand, you will enter into a relationship with him and you will enjoy all the benefits that follow that relationship. That's exactly the story of the Bible. God sends his messengers to say there is one over here who loves you. And if you will accept the offer of his love, you will enter into a relationship with him and you will enjoy all the benefits that fall from it. I think that's enough.

Guest (Male): You're listening to Alistair Begg on Truth For Life. Well today’s message wraps up our study of Jesus’ high priestly prayer and if you've enjoyed listening to this series and would like to share Alistair's teaching with a friend, you'll find the complete series on our website at truthforlife.org. And all the messages in this series can be listened to or watched or downloaded and shared for free.

Here at Truth For Life, we make it our practice to offer as many free or low cost resources as possible. We want to provide clear relevant Bible teaching to anyone who wants to learn more and today we're inviting you to sign up for a short term reading plan titled Breaking Free from Jealousy. In this five day series of emails, Alistair teaches through biblical truth to help you turn from jealousy to joy by setting your heart and mind on something greater than anything the world offers. It's free to sign up, just visit truthforlife.org/readingplans and request Breaking Free from Jealousy.

Thanks for listening this week. We hope you have a great weekend and are able to worship with your local church. Next week we begin a study in the book of Ephesians. So what comes first in our Christian faith? Is it belief or behavior? On Monday we'll explore the answer to that biblical question. The Bible teaching of Alistair Begg is furnished by Truth For Life, where the learning is for living.