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.

20 “I do not ask for these only, but also for those who will believe in me through their word, 21 that they may all be one, just 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 have sent me. 22 The glory that you have given me I have given to them, that they may be one even as we are one, 23 I in them and you in me, that they may become perfectly one, so that the world may know that you sent me and loved them even as you loved me. 24 Father, I desire that they also, whom you have given me, may be with me where I am, to see my glory that you have given me because you loved me before the foundation of the world. 25 O righteous Father, even though the world does not know you, I know you, and these know that you have sent me. 26 I made known to them your name, and I will continue to make it known, that the love with which you have loved me may be in them, and I in them.”

• John 17:6-26

Who are you? You are God’s, You Bear His Name, You are Kept

You Are God’s

Three times in Jesus’ prayer, He mentions that the Father has “given” us to Jesus.

“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,” (John 17:6)

While Jesus is praying for the eleven disciples surrounding Him, vs. 20 makes it clear that He is not only praying for them, but for us as well.

We are the Father’s, and then we are given to Jesus. What does that mean? This is the theme of election or predestination that we have seen repeatedly throughout John’s gospel. In almost every chapter of John, we see this sense that before one comes to faith in Christ, they are already marked, set apart, belonging to God. They do not know it, but their saving faith does not create their identity as “God’s,” but reveals that they were already chosen by Him.

You may love children. But you love your children in a special way. God loves the world. But He loves His own whom He has chosen in a special way. And so Jesus’ prayer here is narrow:

“I am praying for them. I am not praying for the world but for those whom you have given me, for they are yours. (John 17:9)

The Father gives those who are His own to the Son, and when they are given to the Son (which represents their conversion), many things follow.

Application Idea: What is the truest thing about you? At your deepest level, what fact or story or preference or genetic trait or experience marks you as the quintessential stamp of “identity”?

It could be an embarrassing story or it could be a triumph. It could be the shameful thing you have done, or the painful thing that was done to you.

Deeper still is this: You are His. From before time began, it was so. And into eternity, it shall be.

You Bear His Name

“I have manifested your name to the people whom you gave me out of the world.” (John 17:6)

The “name” of God represents His character, His reputation, what He is like. When we learn each others’ names, we learn something about one another, but not much. When Moses asks God to reveal His name to him, God doesn’t give him a name that is telling you what His parents thought was trendy at the time. He has no parents. His name comes from Himself, because it is a revelation of Himself. His first disclosure speaks to this very self-existent nature: I am who I am. No one else name’s God, no one else gives Him His ground of being; He is self-existent.

But what is more surprising to us is how God will also place His name on His people, Israel.

24 The LORD bless you and keep you; 25 the LORD make his face to shine upon you and be gracious to you; 26 the LORD lift up his countenance upon you and give you peace. 27 “So shall they put my name upon the people of Israel, and I will bless them.”

• Num 6:24-27

The idea is that God has so irradiated His people with the warmth of His presence, that they likewise radiate His character to the world.

All of this flows into the person of Jesus. He is the new Israel, who bears God’s name. We even see this hinted at overtly in John’s gospel by the many ways in which Jesus literally takes the “I am” of God’s name for Himself. There are numerous times where Jesus makes the famous “I am” statements, *I am the light of the world, I am the bread of life, I am the way…*but by far the most explicit is when Jesus is arguing with a group of Jews about His identity and his relationship to Abraham, the father of the nation of Israel, who lived 2,000 years before Jesus was speaking (so Abraham was as far removed from Jesus as Jesus is from us). Jesus speaks as if He was around, as if He pre-existed Abraham, but when he says it, He says it like this: Before Abraham was, I am. (John 8:58). And what do the crowds do in response? They pick up stones to kill him. Because He is claiming the divine name of God.

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. (John 17:11-12)

But notice how this name is not merely given to Jesus, but it affects us. We are “in” the name. When Jesus reveals the name of the Father to the disciples, He isn’t just showing them who He is…He is putting God’s name on them. We bear His name; We represent 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. 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. (John 17:6-8)

This is a fairly sweeping claim for Jesus to make about a group of guys who are about fifteen minutes away from abandoning him, right? But Jesus has categories for real, sincere, and imperfect faith—which should be a great comfort to us. Those who are the Father’s and have been given to the Son, who bear God’s name, they may be imperfect, but Jesus can still say: They have kept your word, Father…they believe that you sent me.

Listen to how Jesus speaks of His disciples: “All mine are yours, and yours are mine, and I am glorified in them.” (John 17:10). Jesus is glorified in His disciples. He is honored by His church.

It is easy to complain about the church. Attention economies reward bad news. Breaking News: member faithfully serves in the nursery for years, won’t get many clicks. Righteousness and faithfulness don’t draw much attention. But the opposite does. So we are inundated with a waterfall of bad news about the world, and bad news about the church. I don’t think the church is more sinful or heretical or flawed today than it was in Paul’s day. I just think that news media and the internet have created a perception that fixates on what is wrong, and ignores what is good. It is easy to complain.

Complaint, mockery, grumbling is often the price we pay for a ticket into righteous superiority. It signals to ourselves and to others, “I’m not like them, I’m better than they are, I’m not like my parents church, I’m not like those conservatives, I’m culturally relevant, I’m theologically sophisticated, I’m cool.” Pointing out the sins of others minimizes our own, while also lifting my own status up higher, I see all.

But we don’t. Jesus does. And, sees our sins. He sees our self-serving motives. He sees our imperfect obedience and contradictions…and still, He loves us. He gives us His name. He leaves us with His reputation. He dignifies us with a noble calling.

Application: The work of church membership. Placing the name through baptism.

…through the church the manifold wisdom of God might now be made known to the rulers and authorities in the heavenly places. (Eph 3:10)

You Are Kept

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. (John 17:11-12)

24 The LORD bless you and keep you; - Num 6:24

I made known to them your name, and I will continue to make it known…that the love with which you have loved me may be in them, and I in them.” (John 17:26)

22 And he put all things under his feet and gave him as head over all things to the church, 23 which is his body, the fullness of him who fills all in all. (Eph 1:22-23)

The church is “the fullness of him who fills all in all”—we are the expression of the fullness of God? He fills everything. Heaven and earth could not contain Him. But where is God’s fullness—who He is—most potently revealed? What is God like? Look at this scrappy bunch of sinners, who have been redeemed and transformed into saints. He is not ashamed to call us brothers. He is our head, we are His body.

This language of “head” leads us towards Paul’s idea in the fifth chapter of Ephesians of marriage. As a husband is the head of his wife, so Christ is the head of His Bride, the Church. As a bride takes the name of her husband, so the Church takes the name of Her Lord. What is ours becomes His, what is His becomes ours. We are defined by our union with Him. The bride in Song of Solomon says it sweetly: I am my Beloved’s, and He is mine (Song 6:3).

You shall be a crown of beauty in the hand of the LORD, and a royal diadem in the hand of your God. 4 You shall no more be termed Forsaken, and your land shall no more be termed Desolate, but you shall be called My Delight Is in Her, and your land Married; for the LORD delights in you, and your land shall be married. 5 For as a young man marries a young woman, so shall your sons marry you, and as the bridegroom rejoices over the bride, so shall your God rejoice over you.

• Isa 62:3-5