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.
In the first 5 verses of John 17 Jesus prays for Himself as He prepares to go to the cross. Today we begin the second part of His prayer as He prays for the remaining 11 disciples from verse 6 through to verse 19. We are taking an extended journey through Jesus’ High Priestly Prayer for the simple reason that it is so detailed and there is so much for us to learn from just this one chapter, but when we read through it without pausing, we soon notice that there is a recurring theme in this prayer. Five times in the 26 verses which make up this prayer, Jesus speaks of believers as the people “whom you gave me,” and as we saw last week, God the Father gave the elect to Jesus before the creation of the world, in eternity past.
The Biblical doctrine of election is something we have looked at before in our series on the Gospel of John, and Jesus again refers to it in our text today. Many people, both Christians and non-believers struggle with this whole idea that God, in His sovereignty has chosen a people for Himself, but it is clearly taught throughout the Bible.
We read passages of Scripture like Romans 8:30 and Ephesians 1:4-5, “Those whom He predestined He also called, and those whom He called He also justified, and those whom He justified He also glorified. He chose us in Him before the foundation of the world, that we should be holy and blameless before Him. In love He predestined us for adoption to Himself as sons through Jesus Christ, according to the purpose of His will,” and the first question we usually ask is, who are the elect?
Interestingly enough, the Bible doesn’t tell us to lose sleep wondering whether we are among the elect or not. Instead, we are assured that if we put our faith and trust in the saving work of Jesus on the cross, we are among the elect. 2 Peter 1:10 urges us to “be all the more diligent to confirm your calling and election.” Notice that Peter doesn’t say we are to make ourselves elect but rather to give evidence of our election by a living faith. So the questions, am I elect, or is this person elect, are questions the Bible does not endorse.
Jesus though, in John 17:6-8 where He begins praying for His disciples, reveals some of the characteristics of those who have been chosen by God, and we’ll take a look at four of them this morning.
The people who belong to Christ are those to whom Jesus manifested the Father’s name, whom Christ took out of the world, who have kept God’s Word, and who received Jesus as the One sent from God.
Firstly, when God chose His people in eternity past and presented them as a gift to the Son, those people were brought into a relationship with the Father and became important to God’s saving mission in the world. We have a role to play in sharing the Gospel. When Jesus prayed “I have manifested your name” in verse 6, He fulfilled the words of Psalm 22:22. “I will tell of your name to my brothers; in the midst of the congregation I will praise you.”
Jesus reveals or manifests the Father to us. Proverbs 18:10 says, “The name of the Lord is a strong tower; the righteous man runs into it and is safe.” We need to remember that in and of ourselves, we do not seek God. He seeks us, and He has done so by sending His Son to us, so now we can know God because His name has been made manifest to us by Jesus. The commentator Leon Morris wrote, “Jesus revealed God’s name in a way that the disciples have never dreamed of before, and in doing this He has enlarged their understanding of the nature of God.”
As we read through the Old Testament, we are given a picture of the love that God has for His people, but because of their sin and rebellion, the Israelite nation were held at an arm’s length as it were, from God. There was an elaborate system of sacrifices and rituals which allowed them some access to God, but it was very limited.
Now though, everything has changed, because of the sacrificial death of Jesus. If you want to know what God is like, look to Christ. He has revealed, He has manifested the Father to us. That we can call the creator of the universe our Father, is something that Jesus invites us to do. He constantly prayed to God as Father, and He encouraged the disciples to do the same: “Our Father, who art in heaven, hallowed be Thy name.”
After His resurrection Jesus said to Mary Magdalene, “I am ascending to my Father and your Father, to my God and your God.” (John 20:17)
Because of His return to heaven, Jesus’ disciples and every believer who now comes to Him by faith has the privilege of having the same relationship with the Father that Jesus had during His earthly life.
In verse 3 Jesus prayed, “This is eternal life, that they know you, the only true God, and Jesus Christ whom you have sent.” Nothing is more important for us than to know God as He is revealed in the Bible through Jesus. Other religions do not offer alternative means of knowing the one, true God. We can only know Him through Jesus Christ, as He emphasised in John 14:6. “I am the way, and the truth, and the life. No one comes to the Father except through me.”
Knowing God, as much as He has sovereignly chosen to reveal Himself to us, should be a priority for us as Christians, and the point Jesus is making in verse 6 is that this knowledge of God is given only to His people. “I have manifested your name to the people whom you gave me.”
Paul wrote in Romans 8:15-17, “All who are led by the Spirit of God are sons of God. For you did not receive the spirit of slavery to fall back into fear, but you have received the Spirit of adoption as sons, by whom we cry, ‘Abba! Father!’ The Spirit Himself bears witness with our spirit that we are children of God, and if children, then heirs - heirs of God and fellow heirs with Christ, provided we suffer with Him in order that we may also be glorified with Him.”
If you do not know the one, true God as revealed through Jesus Christ, the invitation to come to Christ is still available to you. As you come to know Jesus, receiving Him in true faith, and embracing the truth of His Word, Jesus will reveal to you the knowledge of the only true God, which brings eternal life.
The second characteristic of the people of Christ is that they have been taken out of the world. “I have manifested your name to the people whom you gave me out of the world.” (John 17:6) Christians are called out of the world and are to live our lives for God, and no longer for ourselves. You’ll remember from last week that the Greek word for Church is ekklesia, the “called out ones.”
The Bible teaches about the great divide between two types of people. There are those who belong to the world and those who have been called out of the world by God for His own purposes. This points to the Biblical doctrine of sanctification. The Latin word for holy is sanctus. Christians are called out of the world system and are called to a life of holiness.
This is one of the ways we do what Peter instructs in 2 Peter 1:3-10. “His divine power has granted to us all things that pertain to life and godliness, through the knowledge of Him who called us to His own glory and excellence, by which He has granted to us His precious and very great promises, so that through them you may become partakers of the divine nature, having escaped from the corruption that is in the world because of sinful desire. For this very reason, make every effort to supplement your faith with virtue, and virtue with knowledge, and knowledge with self-control, and self-control with steadfastness, and steadfastness with godliness, and godliness with brotherly affection, and brotherly affection with love. For if these qualities are yours and are increasing, they keep you from being ineffective or unfruitful in the knowledge of our Lord Jesus Christ. For whoever lacks these qualities is so nearsighted that he is blind, having forgotten that he was cleansed from his former sins. Therefore, brothers, be all the more diligent to confirm your calling and election, for if you practice these qualities you will never fall.”
What does it mean though when we say that we are called out of the world to a life of holiness? What does it look like, and is it even possible?
Those who believe in Jesus are forgiven of their sins. We are justified before God, and then we are called to holy living. Sanctification is a necessary component of our salvation. Christians are those, as Jesus prays, “whom you gave me out of the world.” What this means is that when we are saved by Christ, we are set apart by God from the world. As the old but true saying goes, we may be in the world, but we’re no longer of the world.
We are to no longer live in a worldly manner. A worldly, unsaved person’s mind is on the things of the world like money, prestige, pleasure, and fame. John writes in 1 John 2:15-17, “Do not love the world or the things in the world. If anyone loves the world, the love of the Father is not in him. For all that is in the world - the desires of the flesh and the desires of the eyes and pride in possessions - is not from the Father but is from the world. And the world is passing away along with its desires, but whoever does the will of God abides forever.”
Paul, in Romans 6 teaches, “You must consider yourselves dead to sin and alive to God in Christ Jesus. Let not sin therefore reign in your mortal body, to make you obey its passions.” (Romans 6:11-12) And he writes in Ephesians 4:22–24 that we are “To put off your old self, which belongs to your former manner of life and is corrupt through deceitful desires, and to be renewed in the spirit of your minds, and to put on the new self, created after the likeness of God in true righteousness and holiness.”
And there are many other passages in the New Testament which teach the same thing: One cannot be a Christian without being different from the world. We are given to Jesus as we are called out of the world.
Now of course, we continue to struggle with our sinful nature. We face temptation and we fall into sin every day, but the people of God no longer have the same relationship to sin and the world that we once had.
Paul warned the Church in Galatia, and by extension us as well, “Now that you have come to know God, or rather to be known by God, how can you turn back again to the weak and worthless elementary principles of the world, whose slaves you want to be once more?” (Galatians 4:9)
The point is that as we are called out of the world, when we are sanctified for God’s purposes, it means we are now set apart for Him. Also, living holy lives means far more than not using vulgar language or not watching certain movies and TV shows. In the Old Testament holy things were taken from worldly use and then used to serve God.
Mount Zion was considered holy because that’s where the temple of God was built. The temple furnishings and utensils were holy because they were to be used exclusively for God by the priests, who were also set apart for the purposes of God. So to be holy is to be set apart and designated for God’s possession, use, and pleasure. As we pursue lives of holiness, our greatest desire should be to please God, as we grow in grace and the knowledge of God.
So the second characteristic of those chosen by God before the creation of the world is that we are called to a life of holiness because we are no longer of the world.
Thirdly, we are to keep God’s Word. “Yours they were, and you gave them to me, and they have kept your word.” (John 17:6) The Greek word for kept in the original text is tereo, which means to reserve, to watch or to hold fast to.
Elsewhere in John’s Gospel Jesus uses the same word. In 12:47, He warned of a person who “hears my words and does not keep them.” In 14:15 He said, “If you love me, you will keep my commandments,” and in verse 24 He said, “Whoever does not love me does not keep my words.”
What this means is that when Jesus prays that we have kept God’s Word, He means more than just agreeing with what the Word teaches, but that we obey what it teaches.
Just as in our day, during Jesus’ earthly life, they were many who heard His teaching, but they refused to obey it. After He fed the crowd with a few fish and loaves of bread, Jesus taught them that He was the true Bread of Life, but the vast majority objected to this, as John records in verse 60. “This is a hard saying; who can listen to it?”
Christians are to be different. We are to keep and obey the Word of God. Martyn Lloyd-Jones wrote, “You do not really keep the word of God unless you obey it. It is a word that cannot be kept only in your intellect; it has to be put in your heart and in your will also. The man who keeps the word of God is the man whose whole personality is keeping it, the man who is meditating and rejoicing in it, whose heart warms to it, and so obeys it.”
Lloyd-Jones says that we are rejoice in the Word of God, and that is an important detail. We are not to obey God grudgingly, but as we learn to walk in holiness and obedience to Him, He will give us a passion to do so. The first 3 verses of Psalm 1 say, “Blessed is the man who walks not in the counsel of the wicked, nor stands in the way of sinners, nor sits in the seat of scoffers; but his delight is in the law of the Lord, and on His law he meditates day and night. He is like a tree planted by streams of water that yields its fruit in its season, and its leaf does not wither. In all that he does, he prospers.” And Psalm 119:103, “How sweet are your words to my taste, sweeter than honey to my mouth!”
As Christians we should be praying that God would give us the passion and the strength to keep and obey His Word, as Jesus prayed in verse 6.
The final characteristic of those who are called by God that we are considering today is that we receive Jesus Christ as the Saviour sent from God. “Now they know that everything that you have given me is from you. 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.” (John 17:7–8)
So far Jesus has described His people with regard to their relationship to God, to the world, and to the Word of God. And now we see that the people who belong to God through Christ are defined by them receiving Jesus Himself as He has been given to us by the Father.
Many people admire Jesus for His wisdom. There are other world religions who acknowledge Him as a good man, a wise teacher, and some even call Him a prophet, but they refuse to recognise Him for who He truly is: The Lamb of God who takes away the sins of the world. Saving faith means we are to see the relationship between Jesus and the Father. Many people recognise and acknowledge Jesus’ grace and wisdom, but that does not bring salvation.
Jesus prayed in verse 7, “Now they know that everything that you have given me is from you.” The grace of Jesus is the grace of God, the power in Jesus is the power of God, the truth in Jesus is God’s truth, and the blood of Jesus was offered by God for our forgiveness. Jesus is not just a wise teacher, a good man or even a prophet. He is God. He is the second person of the Holy Trinity who has come into the world as our sin-bearing Saviour.
If you are going to receive Christ as Saviour, you receive Him as God. He is the sum and the fulfillment of the Word of God. “I have given them the words that you gave me, and they have received them,” He says in verse 8. Not only are we to keep God’s Word, but Jesus stresses that keeping God’s Word directs us to Jesus Himself.
The Pharisees thought they were keeping God’s Word, but they were deceived because they rejected Jesus. He said to them in John 5:39, “You search the Scriptures because you think that in them you have eternal life; and it is they that bear witness about me, yet you refuse to come to me that you may have life.” The same warning applies to all those who try to come to God on their own terms. You come to Him to be saved through Jesus Christ, and through Jesus Christ alone. Every man-made religion is a dead-end street. Without Jesus Christ, there is no salvation.
This is what He said in verse 8. “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.”
The people who belong to Christ are those to whom Jesus manifested the Father’s name, whom Christ took out of the world, who have kept God’s Word, and who received Jesus as the One sent from God. These four characteristics of the elect, those chosen by the Father for the Son before the creation of the world, is what makes all the difference.
Even more remarkable, is that it is God who does all of this for us. Look again at verses 6-8, and notice how often Jesus talks about the fact that it is God who gave or has given His people to Him.
“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. Now they know that everything that you have given me is from you. 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.”
Why is this important? Because Jesus teaches here that faith to believe in Him is not something we have to work towards or attain in our own strength. Saving faith is a gift given to us by God. Again, we do not seek God, but He seeks us in the person of Jesus Christ. It takes faith to believe in Him and receive the gift of salvation He offers, and even the faith to believe is given to us by God.
If you are struggling to believe in Jesus Christ and to take Him at His word, if you are unsure that you are among the people of God, ask Him to give faith and salvation to you, and He will answer that prayer. If you are unsure, know that the promise of Jesus in John 6:37-40 is for you. “All that the Father gives me will come to me, and whoever comes to me I will never cast out. For I have come down from heaven, not to do my own will but the will of Him who sent me. And this is the will of Him who sent me, that I should lose nothing of all that He has given me, but raise it up on the last day. 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.”
Saving faith in Jesus is a gift from God, just as the people of Christ are those whom the Father has given to His Son. Do you want eternal life? Turn to God through Jesus Christ, and you will be saved.