IX. The Sermon: The Prayer of Jesus – Part 2 – Rev. Kyle McClellan, Senior Minister, Grace Presbyterian Church. The Sermon Passage: John 17:6-19

The Big Idea: God’s plan is accomplished by those who, by Divine initiative and human response, are identified and sent into the world to proclaim God’s Word.

Exposition

I. Know how “Phase 3” relates to “Phases 1 & 2” (vv. 6-8).

Phase 1: God the Father sends God the Son (cf.: John 3).
Phase 2: God the Son manifests God the Father in the world (John 1 Jesus came to explain God to us).
Phase 3: Jesus sends his disciples into the world to manifest God’s Word. John 17:18 Phase 4: (You’ll have to come back next week).

II. Given, Kept and Sent by Divine Initiative.
The disciples are not merely the disciples because they chose to be, but they are a gift from father to son based on divine initiative.

A. Given (vv. 6, 9).
This is good news. If you are a follower of Christ here today, you are so because God the father set his affection on you before the foundation of the earth and wooed you to him.

B. Kept (vv. 11, 12, 15).
C. Sent (v. 18).

God’s initiative gives us to Christ – the same initiative keeps us and sends us to be a blessing to others!

III. Responding to, set apart by and manifesting God’s Word in the world.

A. Responding rightly to the Word (vv. 6, 8).
Who are Gods elect? The ones who respond rightly to Gods word, vs 6, 8). We do not know who those are for sure, but God certainly does. If you are not a follower of Christ today, it remains over you to come and respond to God’s call.

B. Set apart by the Word (vv. 17, 19).
Too many Christians today think their justification hangs and depends on their sanctification. Jesus did for me what I could not do to myself. I now live holy not because I am trying to get something but living OUT OF what I have already been given!

Are you feeding the poor or are you feeding yourself by feeding the poor? Are you acting TO GET or OUT OF?

III. Manifesting God’s Word in the world (vv. 6, 18).
Jesus in this passage ansers philosophy’s big three: where did we come from, why are we here, and what does it all mean?

The biggest difference between followers of Christ and those who are not is how are they responding to the word?

The passage

6 “I have manifested your name to the people whom you gave me out of the world. Yours they were, and you gave them to me, and they have kept your word. 7 Now they know that everything that you have given me is from you. 8 For I have given them the words that you gave me, and they have received them and have come to know in truth that I came from you; and they have believed that you sent me. 9 I am praying for them. I am not praying for the world but for those whom you have given me, for they are yours. 10 All mine are yours, and yours are mine, and I am glorified in them. 11 And I am no longer in the world, but they are in the world, and I am coming to you. Holy Father, keep them in your name, which you have given me, that they may be one, even as we are one. 12 While I was with them, I kept them in your name, which you have given me. I have guarded them, and not one of them has been lost except the son of destruction, that the Scripture might be fulfilled. 13 But now I am coming to you, and these things I speak in the world, that they may have my joy fulfilled in themselves. 14 I have given them your word, and the world has hated them because they are not of the world, just as I am not of the world. 15 I do not ask that you take them out of the world, but that you keep them from the evil one. 16 They are not of the world, just as I am not of the world. 17 Sanctify them in the truth; your word is truth. 18 As you sent me into the world, so I have sent them into the world. 19 And for their sake I consecrate myself, that they also may be sanctified in truth.