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Jesus sends His disciples into the world as those who are not “of” the world. Consequently, His second request for His followers is that the Father would sanctify them with biblical truth. God is the one who sanctifies, and He does it through His Word.
This Sunday, we examined Jesus’ first prayer request for His followers: that the Father would “keep them.” Our endurance is only possible because of the Father preserves His people. All praise belongs–not to us–but to the Father for keeping us in His name.
Jesus is the bridge between His disciples and the Father in several ways. Not only does He bring the Father to the disciples through revelation, but He also brings the disciples to the Father through intercession.
Jesus glorified the Father on earth by perfectly accomplishing the work He was given. The Father unveils Jesus’ glory when He ascends to heaven. Those who are aware of these truths are driven to bring glory to God in their obedience, driven by a high view of the glorious Christ.
Jesus’ request to be glorified was a willingness to embrace the cross as the very means of glory. Through His death, resurrection, and ascension, Christ reveals God’s glory, gives eternal life, and brings us into a real, personal relationship with the Father.
John 17 gives us the true Lord’s Prayer—the prayer that only Jesus could pray. This prayer reveals both some inner dynamics of the Trinity and the deep love of Christ for His church, as He lifts His people before the Father in His final hours before the cross.
In Revelation 1:17–18, Jesus reveals Himself as the eternal Living One who entered death, conquered it, and now lives forever with absolute authority over it. Our “death problem” has been overcome by Jesus because of His resurrection from the grave.
Jesus does not promise a life free from trouble, but He does promise a peace that holds steady in the midst of it. That peace is found not in changed circumstances, but in union with Christ, trust in His words, and confidence in His victory over the world.
The resurrection of Jesus will produce a catalyst for the disciples’ spiritual growth that they did not see coming. In this text, Jesus prepares them for that coming growth and reveals to them just how much they need it.
Jesus prepared His disciples for the emotional distress they would experience at His death, but He also promised that the resurrection would reverse their sorrow and replace it with an unshakable joy. Because we live on the other side of the resurrection, believers today are called to recognize the privilege of serving a risen Savior and to live in the lasting joy that flows from that reality.
In light of their need for more information, Jesus promises His disciples that the Spirit will teach them what they need to know for their task of taking the gospel to the nations and recording Scripture. Jesus shows that the Spirit’s purposes–which should help the disciples to value Him more–that He promotes the truth and promotes Jesus.
Jesus exposes how easily sincere sorrow can still be self-centered, revealing that the disciples were more concerned with their loss than with His glory. Never-the-less, His departure still worked to their advantage because of the coming of the Spirit, who can convict the world in such a way that leads to salvation.
Jesus warns his disciples about persecution not to frighten them, but to keep them from falling away when they experience the pain of life in a hostile world. He wants all who face persecution on account of Him to remember that He is not surprised by this development, but rather that He is over it all.
In a world that is opposed Jesus and His followers, the Holy Spirit has been sent to bear witness about Jesus. He testifies to the world through believers, making the church an active participant in sharing the truth about Christ with the world.
In this text, Jesus prepares His disciples to endure a hostile world by equipping them with the knowledge that they will be treated the same way He was treated. To help them navigate the world’s hatred, He reminds them just how foolish it is to reject Jesus’ clear self-revelation.
Abiding in Christ expresses itself in sacrificial love for other believers, a love modeled by Jesus’ own death. As we meditate on our privileged position, we are moved to humbly praise Christ and gladly follow his example.
Jesus expounds on the command to abide in Him by telling us to remain in His love—a love which He initiates and which is experienced through ongoing obedience. As believers endure in dependence on Christ, we learn that the path of obedience is a path that leads to the fulness of joy.
There are many blessings that flow from abiding in Jesus. In this text, Jesus graciously shows some unexpected blessings that flow from a life that is abiding in the Vine: our prayers are answered and the Father is glorified.
Jesus teaches that fruit in the Christian life flows only from ongoing dependence on Him, not mere proximity to His teaching or association with His people. John 15:3–6 confronts us with both the gracious foundation Christ provides and the sobering reality that failure to abide reveals the absence of true life.
John 15:1-2 begins Jesus’ illustration of the vine, the vinedresser, and the branches. Jesus begins the illustration by showing how the Father tends the branches either by removal or by pruning.
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