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Because we're confident in the efficacy of the prayers of Jesus, then we have the assurance and are not troubled because we know that that which God has begun in us, he will perfect until the end.

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When was the last time you read John 17? You might be stopped in your tracks when you get to verse 9 as Jesus prays I am not praying for the world, but for those whom you have given me. What might sound shocking to some is actually a great source of comfort for the believer. Welcome to the Sunday edition of Renewing youg Mind, as each week we feature the preaching ministry of RC Sproul. We're in the Gospel of John right now, the penultimate sermon in this short series. So if you'd like to continue in John's gospel with Dr. Sproul as your guide to don't forget to make a donation@renewingyourmind.org before midnight tonight. And to thank you, we'll send you the Hardcover edition of his Commentary on John. Well, here's Dr. Sproul to explain this prayer of Jesus and what it means for you and me.

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As you know, we have been working through the Gospel according to John, and we will continue to study that this morning as I will read from chapter 17, verses 6 through 19. And so I would ask the congregation to stand for the reading of the Gospel. I have manifested your name to the men whom you have given me out of the world. They were yours, and you gave them to me, and they have kept your word. And now they have known that all things which you have given me are from you. For I have given to them the words which you have given me, and they have received them, and have known surely that I came forth from you, and they have believed that you sent me. I pray for them. I do not pray for the world, but for those whom you have given me for they are yours, and all mine are yours, and yours are mine, and I am glorified in them. Now I am no longer in the world, but these are in the world, and I come to you, Holy Father. Keep through your name those whom you have given me, that they may be one as we are. While I was with them in the world, I kept them in your name, and those whom you gave me I have kept and none of them is lost except the Son of perdition, that the Scripture might be fulfilled. But now I come to you, and these things I speak in the world that they may have my joy fulfilled in themselves. I have given them your word, and the world has hated them because they're not of the world, just as I am not of the world. I do not pray that you should take them out of the world, but that you should keep them from the Evil One. They are not of the world, just as I am not of the world. Sanctify them by your truth. Your word is truth. As you sent me into the world, I have also sent them into the world. And for their sakes I sanctify myself that they also may be sanctified by the truth. He who has ears to hear the word of God, let them hear. You may be seated. Following on our treatment of this prayer that began last week, we hear Jesus once again being restricted in his intercessory prayer. We see that he is directing his concern not for everyone in the world indiscriminately, but he is praying specifically in behalf of those whom the Father has given to him out of the world. Now, you'll notice in this passage that we're looking at this concern about the world as a particular locus. And this world, I remind you, refers not only to this place geographically, but it refers to this fallen world, to this place of corruption where people are in an adversarial relationship towards the Creator of this world. And so we see this activity about the world throughout the prayer, remembering that Jesus is not of this world, that Jesus came to this world from outside. He came to this world from above this fallen condition. He left his position of glory that he enjoyed from all eternity as the second Person of the Godhead and came to the world. And now he's praying for people who are by nature part of the world, but have been rescued from the world that the Father has brought out of the world and now given to the Son. And so he says to the Father, I have manifested, I have made obvious and clear your name to the men whom youm have given me out of the world. They were yours, you see, before they were mine, they were yours. They were yours to do with what you wanted. And because they belong to you, O Father, I understand that I didn't redeem them on my own, but they first belonged to you, and you were the One who gave them to me. Well, what has gone on here for these people is no different really, in the final analysis from what God does with us. If I am in Christ, it's because I once was in the world and God took me out of the world. He has possession passion of me. He gave me to Christ. Christ manifested his word to me. And now the Gospel is in my heart. And Jesus is praying that that which has taken place so far not be aborted. Let's look. They have known that all things which you have given me are from you. For I have given to them the words that you have given me, and they have received them and have known surely that I came forth from you. And they have believed that you sent me. I pray for them. I do not pray for the world, but for those whom you have given me. For they are yours and all of mine are yours, and yours are mine, and I am glorified in them. And now I'm no longer in the world, but these are in the world. And I come to you, Holy Father. Now here's the essence of what Jesus is praying for. Keep through your name those whom you have given to me. Last week I mentioned the ongoing dispute about the so called five points of Calvinism which were delineated at the Synod of Dordrecht many centuries ago over against the remonstrance and how out of that came this reduction of Reformed theology to five main points spelled out by the acrostic tulip. There are lots of people who believe in tula who don't believe in tulip. They believe in total depravity, they believe in election, they believe in limited atonement, they believe in irresistible grace. But they believe that those who come to faith in Christ through the sovereign grace of God can lose that salvation and fall away. In the final analysis, whereas Reformed theology vehemently stands in favor of the doctrine of the perseverance of the saints, which is ill named of course, because we persevere. Not because we persevere, but because we are preserved. And so in simple terms, the theology is this. If you haven't, if you really have it, if you're really in Christ, if you're really a reborn person and have saving faith in your soul, if you have it now, you will have it tomorrow and you will have it forever. Because if you have it, you never lose it. And if you lose it, you never had it. As John elsewhere said, those who went out from us were never really among us. But wherein does our confidence lie? In our future assurance of salvation is in the mercy of God. Not when I look at myself and I say, well, I've persevered this many years, so I'm going to make it the rest of the way. No, if my confidence is in my consistency as a Christian or in my persevering in the faith, that confidence is absolutely worthless, for it's based upon nothing less than the arrogance of the flesh. No, no, no. Our confidence in our future Salvation rests on the mercies of God and on the high priesthood of Christ, who goes into the heavenly place as our intercessor and who prays for our perseverance every day that we be not lost. And because we're confident in the efficacy of the prayers of Jesus, then we have the assurance and are not troubled because we know that that which God has begun in us, he will perfect until the end. What this has to do in biblical language, you rarely read ideas of perseverance of the saints in the Bible. What you have conceptually in the Scripture is the concept of keeping. And to be kept safe is to be protected, to be preserved. Remember again the grand benediction of, of the Old Testament Jew. May the Lord bless you and what keep you. That's the goal of salvation, to be kept not just today, but forever. To be kept not by our own resources, but but to be preserved, protected and kept by God himself. And herein we eavesdrop on the prayer of Jesus for those whom the Father has given to them. And he says, holy Father, keep through your name those whom you have given me. Now that can be read a couple of ways. It could mean keep through the power of your name and that Jesus is appealing to the instrument by which we are preserved through the power of God, which euphemistically is called the power of his name. But it can also mean, and I prefer the meaning that he simply is saying there's that keep them in your name. Because if I am in God's name, I am numbered among the redeemed. And that's our status. Where we are now, that's where the disciples were on that night before the death of Jesus, before they were facing their supreme crisis. And Jesus is now praying for them, saying keep them, don't release them, don't let them go, don't scatter them, but hold on to them. I've used that illustration before about perseverance and preservation. With the father walking down the street with his three year old son and he's holding onto his hand and there's danger, their cars whizzing past and the child is only a few feet away from disaster. Now if that child's safety depends upon how strong the grip of the boy is on his father's hand, how tightly he's holding onto the father, then that child is in grave danger. But what keeps that child from destruction is not the grip the boy has on his father's hand, but the grip the Father has on the child's. And that's what Jesus is asking hold on to them. They were yours. You gave them to me. Please keep them that they may be one as we are. You know, I think that's one of the most misinterpreted verses in all of the Bible. Everybody in the world knows that in this high priestly prayer of John 17, Jesus prayed for unity among his people. This is the proof text for everyone committed to the ecumenical movement. Say that Jesus prayer will not be answered until every church is united in the same creed and the same denomination and there not be different subdivisions within the body of Christ. Well, I'm sure that God is grieved by all of our disunity, to be sure. But I hate to think that Jesus has prayed this prayer and that 2,000 years later it still hasn't come to pass. There we would say that fervent, infectious prayer of a righteous man avails little. No, ladies and gentlemen, the prayer that Jesus prayed on that occasion was answered because everyone who is in Christ Jesus is in a situation of unity in Christ, with Christ and with each other. And that that communion of saints that we contain in the Apostles Creed is true. And it transcends every denominational boundary and every geographical boundary. There already is a spiritual unity of every sa who is at one with one another as the Father is with the Son. Not by virtue of our activities or of our practices, but by the spiritual unity that is wrought by the Holy Ghost in our salvation. You have given me these that they may be one as we are. And while I was in the world, I kept them in your name, so that those whom you gave me, I have kept. And not one of them is lost except the Son of perdition. Now wait a minute. You just said that if you're in Christ, you stay in Christ. Nobody loses their salvation. What about Judas? Isn't he exhibit A for those who come to faith and then later on make shipwreck of their faith and end up in destruction? No. The Scriptures tell us elsewhere that in our own Lord's words that Judas was a devil when from the beginning. And that his title here is the Son of perdition. And the only reason he was numbered among the 12 was that the Scriptures might be fulfilled that he was betrayed by this Son of perdition. And perdition, of course, refers to that final eschatological damnation that comes at the hands of God's wrath. And it's that damnation that bears this evil man, Judas. But the ones that you gave me, not one of them has been lost. The only one in my group that's been Lost is the Son of perdition, the Son of Hell himself. The same language is used elsewhere in the Scriptures for the man of lawlessness and for antichrist. And then he says, they're not of the world, just as I am not of the world. And then this final concern. Sanctify them by your truth. Just a few moments earlier, Jesus refer to the Father as holy. Holy Father. He says, for God alone is inherently holy, and we are not holy, but Christ's desire is that we become holy. That the outgrowth of our faith, the outgrowth of our consecration to Christ, that we've been set apart from the world. We've been been set apart unto holiness, unto sanctification. And how does that take place? Paul put it this way, that we are not to be conformed to this world, but we're to be transformed. How? By the renewing of our mind. That the way in which we are made to be brought into conformity to Christ. Let me say it in one word. Doctrine. Hardly a day goes by that I don't hear somebody say, doctrine doesn't matter. What matters are relationships. If doctrine doesn't matter, then truth doesn't matter. And if truth doesn't matter, your sanctification doesn't matter. Because your sanctification doesn't come from relationships. Your sanctification comes from the word of God and from the truth that is poured into your soul, that renews your mind, that renews your thinking and renews your lives. And that. That's what defines godly relationships. You can't have a godly relationship without being in the truth. You don't even know what a godly relationship looks like without understanding. The content of the gospel. Doctrine matters, Beloved eternally, it matters. It mattered to Jesus in his plea before the Father, sanctify them by your truth. Your word is truth. And so he says, you sent me into the world. I've sent them into the world. And for their sakes I sanctify myself that they also may be sanctified by the truth. It's falsehood that corrupts us. The fall of the human race began with a lie. It began with the distortion of the truth. It began with a false doctrine that came through the message of a serpent from hell. And since that day, every time the truth is negotiated, compromised, denied and weakened, our corruption gets worse and worse. The only thing that rescues you from yourself, the only thing that rescues me from myself is a true understanding of God, a true understanding of grace, a true understanding of Christ, and a true understanding of my hopeless condition. Apart from that truth. Jesus understood that, and in the agony of his intercession that was his prayer to the Father for his people that they may be people of the truth.