MO 32 02/22/2026 Eyes to Heaven: The Perfection in Unity John 17:20-26 Michael Otazu Well, good morning, church, it's a joy to sing those songs with you. It's a joy to be ministered to by the ensemble. That song that they just sang, Shalom, has some deep, deep truths and they did such a great job of portraying it and getting our hearts to meditate on those truths. I love the passage that that song is actually based on, it comes out of John 14. Jesus's own words in verses 27-28, “Peace I leave with you, peace I give to you; not as the world gives do I give. Do not let your heart be troubled nor let it be fearful. You heard that I said to you I go away but I will come to you. If you loved Me you would have rejoiced because I go to the Father, for the Father is even greater than I.” He left but He gives us peace. That is a truth that we can sink our teeth into and cling our hearts upon. It's also a truth that I think leads us well into our passage for this morning out of John 17. As you know we have been, in the last couple of weeks, in this “Eyes to Heaven” series, working through John 17 in the mornings and then in the evenings working through various other topics that are implicit in the text of John 17. This is the high priestly prayer of Jesus. We've worked through the first two parts of it, we've worked all the way up through verse 19 and now this morning we're going to wrap up the series, at least the morning version of it because tonight we have Pastor Austin coming up to explain some more implications of these truths, but we're going to wrap up John 17 this morning as we look at verses 20-26. So, if you have a copy of God's Word would you join me in John 17:20 and we'll read straight through to verse 26 and this will be our passage for this morning. These are the very words of our Lord and Savior, Jesus Christ. He says in verse 20, “I do not ask on behalf of these alone but for those who also believe in Me through their word, that they may all be one even 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 sent Me. The glory which You have given Me I have given to them that they may be one just as We are one. I in them and You in Me, that they may be perfected in unity so that the world may know that You sent Me and loved them even as You have loved Me. 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. Oh righteous Father, although the world has not known You yet I have known You and these have known that You sent Me and I have made Your name known to them and I will make it known so that the love with which You loved Me may be in them and I in them.” These are the final verses of our chapter and in this brief section, verses 20-26, we encounter three main concepts, three major themes distilled down into this prayer to the Father. We see the concept of unity, we see the concept of love, and we see the concept of glory. These three themes aren't really separated out in any sort of order here in these seven verses, they're actually pretty well intermixed into them. Like three egg yolks would be mixed into the cake mix of doctrine, these three yolks of unity, love and glory are spread throughout verses 20-26. What I'd like for us to do actually is work through these verses, not necessarily in a chronological, systematic sort of way, but actually I want to pull out these three principles, these three themes which I think summarize not only these verses but also the entire prayer here in John 17. I want to highlight those three points. For our outline, if you are a note taker, I think it would be good for us to write these points down in sort of an applicational format. Here are three points all up front—Pursue Unity, Recognize Love, Yearn for Glory. Pursue Unity, Recognize Love, Yearn for Glory. We've seen each of these three themes already come up in John 17 over the past couple of weeks so there really are no new concepts introduced here at the end of the prayer, but what Jesus is doing for us is He's actually tying them all together and giving these themes to us in sort of a principled conclusion. So that's what we're going to trace out this morning with our time that we have together. We're going to trace out these three themes in applicational form. Pursue Unity, Recognize Love and Yearn for Glory. Let's start out with the first one there, Pursue Unity. We get this primarily out of verse 21 and also 23. We were introduced to this principle of unity last week, actually, as we saw Jesus pray for the unity of the Disciples and now here in our last section of this prayer Jesus brings it up again and applies it even more broadly than He did before. Here Jesus is praying for the unity of all Believers who will come even after His death, resurrection and ascension. He knows of course that just a little while after He leaves these Disciples, after He leaves the people around Him, after He gives them their great commission to go out and make more Disciples and baptize them and teach them, the Father is going to send the Holy Spirit at Pentecost and then the Church will be born. He knows that the Church Age is soon to begin. He knows that church history will be riddled with temptations for Believers to be disunified and so here Jesus prays that these Believers would be characterized by a radical unity. And we're directly included in this; you and I are being prayed for here by the Son to the Father. What we see Him pray is this. Look at, starting in verse 20, “I do not ask on behalf of these alone, but for those who also believe in Me through their word,” that's us, “that they may all be one even 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 sent Me.” This is a profound articulation of the unity of the brotherhood of Believers. It's dripping with doctrine, it's pregnant with implication. There is a lot for us to pick out here and pick up on so what I propose is that we actually add a little bit of a substructure under our first point. The first point is Pursue Unity, I want to give three reasons why we ought to pursue unity—pursue unity because it is our natural state of being, pursue unity because we have a shared purpose to fulfill and pursue unity because it is a witness to the watching world. I think we see these all here in these verses. We need to pursue unity for these three reasons. The first reason that I just mentioned is that we ought to pursue unity because it is our natural state of being. Jesus prays here that we would, look at it there, “all be one even as You, Father, are in Me and I in You.” We saw this last week but I think it's worth reminding ourselves again, the unity that we are called to as Christians is a unity which is already supplied for us ontologically, that is the unity which we are to cultivate and preserve is a unity that is already given to us in our very nature as Believers. When we are given new hearts in Christ at the moment of regeneration a few things happen. First we are made to repent, we're made to believe in the facts of the Gospel that we are hopelessly in debt to God on account of our sins, that Jesus who is God died on the cross to pay that debt, and rose from the grave and now has a claim of lordship on our lives. We believe that we are regenerated; we believe that Gospel truth, we're justified before God; and then we're set on a path of sanctification. The first fruit of that sanctification is repentance, the decisive act of turning away from sin and toward righteousness. We have a change of thinking, a switch in mental disposition, a decisive reorientation of our hearts. So, we are made to repent. But here's what I want to highlight—we're also given the Holy Spirit. And the Spirit who of course is God Himself lives within us to help us produce the fruit of repentance. Along with the many aspects and implications of the ministry of the Holy Spirit, there is the result of this bond of unity that we share as people who all have the Holy Spirit within us. If you have the Holy Spirit dwelling within you, then you have an ontological bond of unity with other Believers that is as unexplained as the doctrine of the trinity. We went through this last week. In a similar way as the three persons of the trinity are one, so we are, as people who have been radically changed at the very core of our beings. Our very natures have changed from self-serving to God-serving, from being wholly concerned with our own needs and desires to being concerned with the interests and desires of the brethren. We're a people who care deeply about each other because we are a people who have been deeply changed by God. Do you see this here? All of this is in view as Jesus directs our attentions to the fact that the unity which we are to cultivate and preserve is a unity that is given to us in our very natures as Believers. He prays that we would “all be one even as You, Father, are in Me and I in You.” Intense unity, radical unity, unexplained unity. This unity is to be present despite our carnal propensity to divide. There is a tension at play in every church and if you've been a part of other churches in this you know this, of course, is true, it's a universal experience. On one hand we are brothers and sisters, we share the same spiritual DNA, we've been born again into Christ, we've been indwelt with the Holy Spirit, we are brothers and sisters. On the other hand, we're brothers and sisters. Our proximity to each other as we live in deep community brings out temptations for bickering, doesn't it. Our propensity to divide is serious, we're ready to divide over all sorts of things, aren't we? The newness of the church programs that are coming out, the pastor's preaching style, minor updates in philosophy of ministry at the level of church leadership, the various decisions made by church leadership, that thing that so-and-so said about me or my friend or my family member or the way such-and-such a situation wasn't handled properly from my perspective. Whatever it is we're ready to make a stink at the drop of a hat. It's part of our sinful nature, our human nature which tends to stick around even after salvation, and it's ready to rear its head when provoked. Oftentimes we need to give ourselves a perspective check, we need to remind ourselves of our spiritual situation over and against our earthly situation. We need to recognize the magnitude of not just what we've been saved from, but what we've been saved to. We've been saved from our allegiance to worldly thinking that was leading us to ultimate spiritual death, and we've been saved to a building project. We've been taken out of the nasty soup of worldly sinfulness, and we've been placed into God's new construction project which is the Church. When you've gone from a glob of mud to being made into a brick, being shaped and molded and baked into a strong clay block and then being joined together with other former globs of mud who have been made into bricks, you neither have the right nor the freedom to sow disunity. The mortar being used to glue these bricks together around you is a divine mortar; it's being mixed by the master craftsman, it's being applied by the Holy Spirit. Our new identities are like bricks as Paul says in Ephesians, “Being built together into a dwelling of God in the Spirit.” This evening Pastor Austin is going to be taking this topic and advancing it even further into all sorts of applications, so we'll leave it there for now and let him take the baton forward. But for our purposes here in John 17 we need to at least understand that the whole point of this design from God is that we would be unified for a purpose, that we're not just a unified building or a unified body for the sake of aesthetic beauty. Rather, we are unified, we are to pursue this unity, to preserve this unity because we have a shared purpose to fulfill. Our second reason for why we ought to pursue unity, pursue it first because it's our natural state of being, now here I want to talk about pursuing unity because we have a shared purpose to fulfill. To see this principle spelled out for us, actually, let's go over to Paul's letter to the church in Philippi. Flip with me if you would over to Philippians 2 in particular. We're going to see the same basic concept here of unity framed in terms of application. Philippians 2, we'll just start right there at the beginning of the chapter. Paul says this to the church there in Philippi, “Therefore if there is any encouragement in Christ, if there is any consolation of love, if there is any fellowship of the Spirit, if any affection and compassion, fulfill my joy that you think the same way by maintaining the same love, being united in spirit, thinking on one purpose.” You see how Paul puts it here for the Philippians? “Think the same way by maintaining the same love, being united in spirit.” Here's the kicker, “thinking on one purpose.” We're unified not just in that we like each other, and that's even a little shaky sometimes, we're unified in our shared goal, our “thinking on one purpose,” as Paul puts it here. That's our common motivation that keeps us moving forward in the same direction, in a unified front. As many of you know I have three young boys at home, they are all pretty young still. My oldest is 6 and the youngest is 1½ so he is still in diapers and still getting his feet under him. You know that, if you have any children, that they do have a natural bond of unity in the fact that they are all from the same household and reared under the same philosophy of parenting and they even share the same bond of DNA, but they are not always unified in practice. It's not uncommon for bickering and selfishness to enter their relationship and it's not uncommon for their natural unity to be threatened. Recently the two older boys, 4 and 6 years old, have been saving up their money for a couple of items that they've had their eyes on. One of them really wants a Lego set and the other one really wants a fixed blade knife. I really have no problem with them having either of those things, I'm just not going to go out and buy everything for them that they ever want. So, they still have to do all their normal household chores but occasionally they'll have the opportunity to be paid for doing some extra work around the house. One of the jobs is hauling up firewood down from the corn crib, where it is stored, all the way up the hill to the porch and stacking it on the porch nice and neat. It's not their favorite job because it is all uphill to the house and all they really have is one of those little red classic Radio Flyer wagons and it's what they can use to haul firewood, otherwise it would be in their hands. They get paid a few cents for each load, so they'll often spend their free time making trips down to the corn crib, loading it up and fetching firewood and bringing it up to the porch and stacking it and then I count it and pay them whatever few coins they've earned. It's a pretty good system for us, but the trouble is that they don't always work well together, surprise. They may have a bond of unity in their DNA, but oftentimes they allow their selfish interests to override that unity. They each have different ideas for how to stack the pieces of firewood on their little red wagon. Once they have that little red wagon filled, they each have different ideas on which route to take, around the barn where the gradient is less steep or straight up to the porch where there is less distance but a lot steeper hill. One needs to be the pusher; one needs to be the puller for that wagon to make it up the hill fully loaded. But they don't always agree on which one should do which job. There is a state of unity between them by default of being brothers, but their sinfulness compromises it. So, I go down there sometimes when I hear them bickering and I try to mediate the argument and I try to encourage selflessness and love and putting each other first and outdoing each other in showing honor. Those sorts of reminders usually work out eventually, but recently what I've noticed is that one of the most effective ways for me to help restore unity in their relationship is to remind them of their shared goal. Each of them is in this business for the ultimate reward of earning money so that they can buy that item that they really want. If I can remind them about that goal, their purpose for doing this difficult work, almost every time their tempers calm, their focus tightens and they put their personal preferences aside and then they recommit themselves to unity for the sake of that goal. Really, that's just human nature, isn't it. There is something about bickering siblings out by the corn crib that illustrates our own tendency toward disunity as brothers and sisters in Christ, isn't there? We're deeply unified spiritually, though our shared bond in the Holy Spirit can be tested by our fleshly desires, which are constantly trying to tear down that unity for the sake of ourselves. We're prone to assert our own way, aren't we. We tend towards selfishness in relationships even in the church. We want what we want and sometimes those personal interests take precedence over what the church needs. We're a people who bicker over how to stack the firewood in the little red wagon instead of maintaining a focus on the purpose that we share as brothers and sisters. Our hearts are experts at putting themselves first, aren't they. We're professional at being selfish and there are a lot of things out there in the world which, if they found their way in here, could take this wonderful church which the Lord has blessed immensely over the past 6 plus decades and cause it to crumble down into a heap of ashes. There are a lot of threats out there beyond this brick wall. There is false teaching which could take root. It could get into our doctrine and have devastating consequences. There are distortions of core truths which might seem minor when looking at them bouncing around out there in the world, but they would fracture our very belief system if we allowed them in here. There is therapeutic secularism, there is third wave feminism, there is social liberalism, there is wokeism which if somehow was found entered into this church and somehow gained traction in our thinking, it would destroy us. But I'll tell you this right now, and I don't think I'm out on a limb here when I say it, the greatest threat to our church's health and unity isn't out there trying to sneak in here, it's already in our midst, it's in my heart, it's in your heart. It's a poison which we all have to some degree or another within us. It's coiled up like a snake, it's ready to strike and spew its poison everywhere. Brothers and sisters, the greatest threat to our church isn't some wayward system of thinking out there in the world. It's not some “ism” brewing in our culture. The greatest threat to our unity is our own selfishness, it's our own heart's carnal temptation to detract from our shared purpose. We all in our sinfulness desire to somehow make it about us and our individual interests and our goals rather than the shared purpose of the church. This is why Paul wrote to the Romans in Romans 15:5-6, “Now may the God of perseverance and encouragement grant you to be of the state of mind with one another according to Christ Jesus so that with one accord you may with one voice glorify the God and Father of our Lord Jesus Christ.” This is the what of why Paul wrote to the Philippians in Philippians 2:3-4. We were just in Philippians 2:1-2, look down to the next two verses. He says, “Do nothing from selfish ambition or vainglory, but with humility of mind regarding one another as more important than yourselves, not merely looking out for your own personal interests but also for the interests of others.” Of course you know by the context here he was writing this to Believers who already had the natural ontological sort of unity given to them in their shared salvation. But they still needed to hear this warning, to be careful about avoiding detracting from the church's purpose, taking away from the unity of the church, eroding it little by little with one selfish act after another selfish act. Even as Believers who have been given new life in the Holy Spirit to establish unity as our natural state of being as a body of Believers, it doesn't mean we are guaranteed to have unity forever. Churches don't last more than a few hundred years at best. Most often they don't even break a half century. So, we're already pushing the limits on the statistics here. Throughout church history every local body that has ever assembled has ultimately fallen apart. They either close their doors and sell their buildings, or they lose their commitment to the Gospel and Christ snuffs out their lampstand even while their doors are open and their seats are filled. Brothers and sisters, call me crazy if you want, call me an optimist, an irrational optimist if you want, but what I hope is that for our church to be so consumed with our passion for our shared purpose in glorifying the Lord and seeing the saints sanctified and evangelizing the lost that this body just continues and continues and continues on into perpetuity until Christ returns for us and whoever among is still alive here at the church at this time. That is what we should want. My hope and Christ's hope in John 17 and Paul's hope in Philippians 2 is that we would pursue unity not just by talking about it but by pursuing it with our shared purpose as Believers, that we would be “united in spirit, thinking on one purpose,” as Paul says here in Philippians 2. The question is then, what's our purpose? If as we've seen, we are to pursue unity because it is our natural state of being, and because we have a shared purpose, well then what's the purpose? We find that answer in the next words of the prayer here in John 17, Jesus reveals this answer, gives us the purpose, tells us the goal of our radical unity as He prays to the Father in verse 21. He prays “that they may all be one, even 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 sent Me.” Then He reiterates it in verse 23, “I in them, You in Me that they may be perfected in unity so that the world may know that You sent Me and loved them even as You have loved Me.” So, if you are keeping up with our outline here, this is our third reason to pursue unity. Pursue unity because it's a witness to the watching world, pursue unity because it's our natural state of being, pursue unity because we have a shared purpose to fulfill, and now here we see that we need to pursue unity because it is a witness to the watching world. I won't belabor this point too long since we talked about it last week when Jesus made His prayer for the Disciples, but we do need to at least make sure here that we understand that we're not just to be unified for the sake of unity. We're to be unified because there is a whole world watching us. John 13, “A new commandment I give to you, that you love one another even as I have loved you, that you also love one another. By this all will know that you are My Disciples if you have love for one another.” Relational unity among the brethren is noticeable. Do you see that? It should be remarkable that you all put up with me, it should be remarkable that we all overlook all sorts of relational snags that would crumble any other sort of organization. It should be remarkable how loyal we are to each other despite having plenty of reasons to leave this fellowship and start attending the church across town. Our unity should not be only visible to the outside world, but it should be so obviously unique in its quality that they ponder how it's even possible. Just the other day I was at home in my study working. Jen, I think, was busy in the kitchen getting lunch or supper ready. It was one of those really nice, warm, sunny days we've had over the past couple of weeks so there is no telling where the boys are going to be at midday at a time like that. They could be out in the woods, they could be getting into trouble in the barn, they could be chasing rabbits, chasing cats. I don't know all sorts of different things. The windows in my study look out over our front yard and as I was reading or writing or whatever it was that I was doing at the time I noticed the boys coming around the barn into view, up the hill, you guessed it, with that little red wagon filled to the brim with firewood and to my surprise they weren't bickering. They weren't even having to take turns being the pusher and the puller. As I looked closer I noticed that they even had their little brother with them, the 1-year-old who can barely walk up the hill by himself let alone push a wagon up the hill. He definitely can't contribute to their effort but yet they were accommodating him. They were going really slowly so that the little one could keep up with them. They were actually helping him hold onto the side of the wagon so that he could be more stable as he walked on the grass up the hill. He was certainly not contributing anything to their effort, but they wanted him to be a part of what they were doing. They were working in perfect harmony, one pulling while the other pushed at the same exact speed, stopping when they needed to in order to help the little brother get back up and hang onto the wagon. They eventually made it all the way up to the house and began stacking the firewood in the proper place where they were supposed to put it, and they even gave the little sticks to the little guy so that he could feel like he was part of it, too. I'm telling you this not just because I really love my kids and appreciate my boys, but because it highlights the truth here that we're considering in John 17. You see my boys had no idea that I was watching them. They weren't doing what they did for any sort of accolades or recognition from me. I mean, they certainly were hoping to be paid the usual rate for the firewood, but they could have just left their little brother in the dust and probably gotten a couple extra more loads in, in the time it took them to do the one load with their little brother. Their display of unity, especially because they thought no one was watching, was a testimony to their internal motivation to put their personal interests aside and work together for a common purpose. The same should be said of us. It's our job to be unified in our purpose as a church body. It doesn't matter if we think the outside world is watching or not. We love each other in the trenches, we serve each other even when no one is watching, we accommodate each other's weaknesses, prioritizing unity over our outward metrics of productivity. We're to live in such a radical unity that when the outside world does catch a glimpse of it, they would think wow, there just is something unique about those people. They have something unnatural about them. Verse 23, “I in them and You in Me that they may be perfected in unity so that the world may know that You sent Me and loved them even as You have loved Me.” Pursue Unity, that's our first point. Now I want to shift into our second major applicational takeaway here which is that we ought to recognize love. Pursue Unity and now Recognize Love. Look with me at verses 23 on through verse 26 of our text. Just pick up here as we read it on how Jesus speaks of the concept of love. He says, “I in them,” verse 23, “and You in Me that they may be perfected in unity so that the world may know that You sent Me and loved them even as You have loved Me. Father, I desire that they also whom You have given to 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. O righteous Father, although the world has not known You yet I have known You and these have known that You sent Me, 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.” Wading into the waters of this theme of love is like wading into the ocean. I mean, there is just a depth and magnitude of the concept and implication of Biblical love that is really just too much for us to fully wrap our heads around, especially in the time we have together this morning. But I'd like us to at least pick up on a couple of key elements of it here. First, we see the Father's love to the world. Look with me here at the end of verse 23. After praying that our unity would be a testimony to the world, Jesus recounts that the Father “loved them even as You have loved Me.” The “them” in reference here is the world. Jesus is talking about how our unity should bear witness of the veracity of our claim that the Father sent the Son into the world. Now here He adds to this fact that that testimony should also bear witness about the fact that the Father loved the world. Do you see that connection here? God so loved the world. Are your John 3:16 senses tingling? Mine are, flip over there. God so loved the world; this is the Father's love most clearly articulated in a single verse. John 3:16, “For God so loved the world that He gave His only begotten Son, that whoever believes in Him shall not perish but have eternal life.” If there were ever a demonstration of love to the world it was that the God who made the world and owns the world and will eventually judge the world and send much of the world to hell as its eternal consequence for its rebellion offered those in the world a way out. If there ever was a demonstration of love to the world it would be this, that God “gave His only begotten Son that whoever believes in Him shall not perish but have eternal life.” The whole of the Gospel is wrapped up in this verse. Notice that the perishing of the people is just assumed. We often have this verse memorized, potentially read it all the time, put it on the t-shirts. Have you ever stopped to think about it a lot? Exposit it in your mind? Exegete it, take the meaning out of it and apply it to your heart? The perishing of the people is just assumed, it's the starting point of an accurate worldview, it's the starting point of the Gospel truth. We are all doomed to utter ruin in eternal suffering as a result of our sinfulness and we have no power to be able to get ourselves out of that cosmic predicament. But God so loved the world, love entered the equation. The bleak, dark cave that our blind sinfulness has kept us in was pierced by a beam of light. God's love shone through the universe like a ray of sunshine, like a life raft tossed out into the dark waters in which we are drowning; offering us a way out of the just punishment that we all deserve. This love came to us in the form of a person. “God so loved the world that He gave His only begotten Son.” He gave to us His very Son, His beloved Son. Romans 8:32 tells us that He “did not spare His own Son but delivered Him over for us all.” The Son of God came to earth and died a substitutionary death for the sins of the whole world. That is what is meant here by “God gave His only begotten Son.” The sin debt of the world was on His shoulders, and He took on the suffering that we all deserve. And the result is what? How do we become partakers in this grace? “That whoever believes in Him shall not perish.” The way out of our dark cave of sin is to believe in Him, to wholeheartedly put your faith in Him, to take all your chips and go all in on Christ, not out of some statistical hope or some sort of spiritual insurance policy that you hope might keep you out of hell just in case this all turns out to be true. But out of the sense of sureness that is in fact the truth. If we do that, if we believe in Him then we shall not perish. Not only that, we'll have eternal life. So friend, if you want that and you are not sure that you have that, if you look at your life and you think this is out of control, doubling down on my sin has led me nowhere but to a place of constantly feeling like if I just get a little bit more I'll be satisfied, I keep thinking that peace is around the next bend but when I get there it just feels worse than before. Friend if that describes you, then please see this as the lifesaving rescue that God intends it to be. Hear this Gospel with fresh ears, feel the love of the Father being extended to you, recognize the wonder of the Son of God being sacrificed so that you might not perish but have eternal life. Friend, this is love, this is God's love from Himself directed to the world which does not deserve an ounce of it. Recognize it, respond to it, relish in it, revel in it. This is the love referenced by the Son in His prayer back in John 17. Verse 23, He prays “that the world may know that You sent Me and loved them.” That's the love. The Son prays to the Father that He would make it such that “the world may know that You sent Me and loved them.” There is a more particular sort of aspect to the love of the Father's love here and we see this sense in that the Father's love isn't just given to the world but also to Believers. Look with me down in verse 26. Here Jesus teaches about the Father's love in all Believers. The Son prays, “I have made Your name known to them and I will make it known to them so that the love with which You loved Me may be in them and I in them.” That the love with which You loved Me may be in them. So, this love from the Father is not just directed to the world in the form of Christ, this love from the Father is also directed somehow to Believers, it will eventually be in us. We've seen the Father's love extended in multiple ways here and now we see it put in us. What Jesus is praying here is something that we've already talked about in this series, even this morning at the beginning of the sermon. Salvation or regeneration comes with some pretty great benefits. We're not only given new life that can never be taken away from us, a new repentant disposition towards sin and righteousness, but we're also blessed with God coming to live within us. This is what Paul prayed would be the case for the Ephesian Believers in Ephesians 3:17. There He prayed that Christ may dwell in their hearts through faith. In John 14:23 Jesus said, “If anyone loves Me, He will keep My word and My Father will love him, and We will come to him and make our dwelling with him.” There is a very real sense in which God the Son comes into Believers at the point of regeneration and I think that the testimony of Scripture tells us that this is connected to the concept of love. Christ who is the ultimate manifestation of love comes into the Believer in order to motivate him to love as God has loved. Let's flip over to I John, I want to show you this, want you to see with your own eyes not just trust me here. This is taken directly from Scripture. I John 4:9, we're going to see that the definition of love involves it being in us. I John 4:9, “By this the love of God was manifested in us, that God sent His only begotten Son into the world so that we might live through Him. In this is love, not that we loved God but that He loved us and sent His Son to be the propitiation for our sins. Beloved, if God so loved us, we also ought to love one another.” Here we see how God's love put in us demands action from us. Do you see that? See, love is primarily self-sacrifice for the good of another person. That's what God did, He loved us. His love was manifested in us, it was made tangible in us by Himself sacrificing Himself through His death on the cross so that, John says here, “we might live through Him.” That's the Gospel, that's the message of love, love directed toward undeserving people. That's how John defines love right here in I John 4:10. “In this is love, not that we have loved God but that He loved us,” He defines it, “and sent His Son to be the propitiation for our sins.” It's easy to love someone who loves you back, right? It's easy to love lovable people. But it's other worldly to love unlovable people. We see this truth really clearly in Romans 5:7-8, “For one will hardly die for a righteous man, though perhaps for a good man someone would dare even to die. But God demonstrates His own love toward us in that while we were yet sinners Christ died for us.” We've sinned and we've fallen woefully short of being good and worthy of His love. In a very real sense, we were disgusting to God because of our sin. But that didn't stop Him from showing love to us. Church, before we were saved, we were exceptionally gross, were we not? We were ensnared in the one thing that God cannot stand for, we had allegiance to sin, yet He loved us. He sacrificed of Himself for our good. He paid the penalty for our sin by His own blood. He died so that we might live. That's love. God loved those who didn't deserve it. The definition of love is fundamentally wrapped up in the Gospel, is it not? The God of all power, the God of all glory, the God of all righteousness stooping to sacrifice of Himself for unworthy, filthy sinners and making a way for them to be saved from the just penalty that they deserve. Church, love isn't dependent on feelings or emotions, love isn't dependent on the lovableness of the object of love. Love is totally and completely selfless, sacrificial. It's an attitude of others centeredness that's definitionally exemplified in Christ's incarnation, humiliation, and crucifixion. God loved people who didn't deserve the loving. He loved seemingly unlovable people. He's the only One who could have done it. That's what John is explaining here in I John 4:9-10. But look here at the application of this truth in the next two verses. I John 4:11-12, “Beloved, if God so loved us, we also ought to love one another. No one has beheld God at any time. If we love one another, God abides in us and His love is perfected in us.” If God loved us so much not to be hindered by our faults and our offenses, then we also ought to love one another in the same way. Do you see it? He provides the definition of love, the example of love and the motivation to replicate it in the Church. John is saying if you are someone who has been the recipient of God's redeeming love, then you have no choice but to love others in the Church. On the flip side if your soul has been saved by God and His love and you are not loving the brothers and sisters in the church, then you are failing to live according to your identity as one who has been loved of God. This is what happens to people when God's love is directed into the center of their souls, they can't help but reflect that love outward toward other Believers. Verse 11, “If God so loved us, we also ought to love one another.” I believe this is what Jesus had in mind as He prayed to the Father in John 17, you can flip back there now with me. This is what Jesus had in mind. He says, “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.” The Father's love is directed toward the Son and then through the Son into Believers. The Son is in us, making love tangible, helping us understand it by giving us an example of it and then motivating us not to just be recipients of it but to be conduits of it. We are conduits of love. So far, we've looked at this last section of the Son's prayer and highlighted two themes, unity and love. We are to pursue unity, and we are to recognize love. Now as we wrap up our study of these verses this morning, I also want us to see this one final point of application, and this would be our third point in our outline. We are to Yearn for Glory. We see this primarily out of verses 22-24. Read verses 22-24 with me, pick up on this theme of glory. “The glory which You have given Me I have given to them that they may be one just as We are one and I in them and You in Me, that they may be perfected in unity so that the world may know that You sent Me and loved them even as You have loved Me. 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.” So here we see this theme of glory come back full circle. Glory is what started this high priestly prayer all the way back up in verse 1 and it's what concludes it. Just two weeks ago we opened up this series by considering Jesus's opening request back up in verse 1 that the Father glorify Him. Remember that? Two weeks ago. Now, we see Him wrap up His prayer with the same sentiment, the same theme. It comes back up again. The Son at this point in history is yearning for the restoration of His former glory. You see back up in verse 1 He asks that the Father glorify Him and that the Father might in turn be glorified. Then in verses 4-5 we saw that Jesus looked forward in time, past His death on the cross, and asks that He be taken back up to His rightful place with the Father and be glorified with Him there. He says in verse 5, “with the glory with which I had with You before the world was.” So, the Son is yearning for this restoration of His former glory. He wants to be taken back to be in perfect union with the Father and to partake in all of the glorious worship and splendor that is in heaven. The dusty sin-cursed earth is just no place for royalty let alone deity. The Son longs for that glory to be restored to Him. We know of course that that's exactly what happened. Hebrews 1:3 tells us that “Christ is the radiance of the Father's glory and the exact representation of the Father's nature and upholds all things by the word of His power, who having accomplished cleansing for sins sat down at the right hand of the Majesty on High.” Paul describes the Son's present state in Ephesians 1:20-23 saying that the Father did what the Son asked for here in His prayer. Paul says that “He raised Him from the dead and seated Him at His right hand in the heavenly places, far above all rule and authority, far above all power and dominion and every name that is named, not only in this age but also in the one to come. He put all things in subjection under His feet and gave Him as head over all things to the church, which is His body, the fullness of Him who fills all in all.” Jesus right now is in this glorious state. He sits at the right hand of the Father on high and upholds the universe in His hand and governs His bride, which is the Church and enjoys the glory which was given to Him before the foundation of the world. Jesus isn't hurting for glory now; He has it all. But get this, He wants us to be a part of it, He desires that we be there to partake in it. He wants us to see it. Look at it here in verse 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.” Isn't it magnificent? We, the most despicable creatures in the universe, the ones who have rebelled against Him, the ones who have rejected Him and whipped Him and crucified Him and spat in His face and put a crown of thorns on Him. We are desired to be in the presence of this mighty Savior and to partake in this heavenly glory. We spat on Him, we struck Him, we mocked His claim to glory, we ridiculed Him upon that cross and yet somehow against all senses of fairness He desires not only to save those of us who will be willing to bend our knees in repentance and belief, but that we would then be welcomed into His heavenly presence and the gloriousness of His reign. If that doesn't make us fall flat on our faces in humility and worship, then I don't know what would. We were wretches, undeserving of any favor and yet this God, the Son who is God in the flesh, prayed a prayer recorded by the Apostle John and in that prayer beseeched the Father Himself to not only restore to Himself His former glory but then to bring us with Him after this short life is over. If you've heard nothing else out of John 17 over the past three weeks, then at least hear this. This is just the beginning. This life that we live is just the opening act of an eternity of glory. Our bodies may be falling apart as we speak, our hearts may be burdened beyond their ability, our minds might be limited by the curse, our ability to focus on that which is important might be wavering. But we serve a Savior who knows all of this, who sympathizes with us in our weaknesses and who cares deeply about us joining Him in glory as soon as we take our final breaths or as soon as those trumpets sound and snatch us up to be with Him, whichever comes first. I don't know about you but that makes me excited, and it gives me motivation to endure the slight inconveniences of this life. It's my prayer that we would be a church deeply impacted by these truths, a church which yearns for the coming glory. Let's pray. Oh heavenly Father, God, You in Your masterful design for all of history have allowed us, those of us in this room who are Believers, to partake in Your glory. Lord, we deserve nothing of this, Lord, and we feel it. We deserve nothing good, no forgiveness, no grace and yet You gave it to us. Not only that Lord, you've promised us glory to partake in the gloriousness of worshiping You in heaven, of being with You for all eternity. God, it's too much for me to even think, to even understand, it baffles me. You have not given us cognitive abilities to understand the depths of these truths. You have stooped to explain them to us in language in a form that we might be able to understand their beginnings. But Lord, we know that there is so much more that we long to understand and we know that we will spend eternity seeking to understand those things, learn those things and worship You in light of those things. God, we are floored. Thank You. God I know that in every church, in every local gathering there are always folks who come and watch the way that we speak to You and study Your Word and yet, Lord, even self-deceived they are outsiders. Lord, You haven't done that miracle of regeneration in their hearts yet. God, if there are any in this room this morning who fit that bill, God I pray that You would condescend to work in their hearts, to bring about the bending of the knee, to bring about the repentance. To bring about that belief, that wholehearted certainty of the Gospel truth that Your Son is the greatest manifestation of love in all the universe. That You sent Him here to pray this prayer recorded in John 17 so that we might understand a little bit more the inner workings of Your mind. You sent Him to come and die on the cross for the sins of the world, including the sins of those in this room who are unbelieving. Lord, I pray that You would do a mighty work in their hearts, bend their knee, cause them to join this family, cause them to join this fellowship. Give their DNA an overhaul, make them ontologically in unity with us so that we might run the race with purpose, all unified for Your ultimate glory. Lord, we pray these things in Your honor and in gratefulness. In Your name, Amen.