Scott Brown's sermon, 'Heaven Is a World of Love,' explores the depth of Jesus' prayer in John 17, emphasizing the love and unity between God the Father, Jesus, and His disciples. He highlights the eternal and unbreakable bond of God's love, which began before the foundation of the world and extends to believers. The sermon is framed around the intimate prayer of Jesus, who desires for His disciples to experience His glory and love both on earth and in heaven. Brown discusses the importance of understanding God's love as the foundation of salvation, emphasizing that it is not based on human merit but on the Father's love for the Son. The sermon breaks down the sections of the prayer: Jesus praying for Himself, His disciples, and all believers, illustrating the progression of divine love and unity. Brown encourages believers to meditate on the heavenly reality and describes heaven as a place of pure love, joy, and eternal beauty, urging them to 'take a walk in the New Jerusalem' daily. He concludes by stressing the importance of applying heavenly theology to earthly life, ensuring it leads to genuine love for God and others.

Yes, please open up your Bibles to John 17 and find verse 24. I'll be dealing with verses 24 and 25 I hear this morning And then on verse 26 this afternoon, verse 24, Father, I desire that they also whom you gave me may be with me where I am, that they may behold my glory which you have given me, for you loved me before the foundation of the world. O righteous Father, the world has not known you, but I have known you, and these have known that you sent me." Let's pray. Oh, Lord, we're so grateful for this intimacy that you have in heaven, that you have enveloped us in, that we might be with you to behold your glory. Lord, we're so grateful for your kindness toward us, and we pray that your Kindness would be understood and felt here this morning, that we would find all of our hope in you, that you would open up our eyes to observe wondrous things from your law today.

Amen. Amen. Please be seated. Well, as we come to this last section in John chapter 17, the end of the upper room discourse, it's very clear that What is on Jesus' mind is love between his disciples on the earth, everlasting life with him and beholding his glory in heaven. Heaven being a fountain of love.

And, you know, here we are. It's been a long journey in John 17. This is the sixth message on this chapter that I'll deliver, and then the seventh will be this afternoon. You know, there are some commentaries out there that have 10, 20, 30 pages on every single verse of John 17. I have a 400-page commentary that deals with every single verse, and some have preached through every single verse.

We've taken it a little bit faster than that. But when you read through this, there are many promises that are revealed, many encouraging projections for your life if you're a disciple of Jesus. No imperatives, no demands, no threatenings in this entire chapter. They're all outpourings of love of the Son to the Father and the Son recognizing His love for Him and for His disciples. And so, John 17 really puts us in a front row seat to see the kind intentions of God's will for His people, to bring us to heaven, to be with Him, and to behold His glory, and until then to love one another the way that He has loved us, and to express the love of the Father to the Son and to the sons and daughters that live on the earth.

And so this has been called the Holy of Holies for good reason. And just to remind you, this prayer breaks into three sections. And you can picture it by holding in your hand a dime, a nickel, and a quarter. The first five verses is the smallest section where Jesus prays for Himself. That would be the dime.

And then he widens out, giving more attention to his prayer for his disciples in verses 6 through 19. And then you can picture the quarter as the biggest piece where Jesus prays for all believers. And this prayer lets us peek into the most important things that there are in the heart of God the Father and God His Son. And the prayer reveals the priorities of the Father and the Son. The prayer reveals the desires, the objectives, and the methodologies that they will use to bring us to glory.

And so there's this window of information that the disciples are overhearing. They're bystanders and they're overhearing a prayer. Imagine that, overhearing things being revealed to you that you didn't really know before. When somebody really bears their heart about you, that's exactly what they're experiencing. They're experiencing a revelation of the thoughts and the feelings and the plans of God for them.

And they're overhearing it. I don't think they knew all these things with clarity. And there they are overhearing a prayer. Just like you would overhear something in another room. But they are overhearing this and you know they learn lots of things about themselves.

They learn about why God saved them, why God moved their hearts, and how sinners really are brought to salvation. So this prayer, you know, it was once, you know, illuminating in one place and encouraging in another place, and astounding in many places as Jesus reveals the reality about heaven and earth and all of eternity and what will intervene so remember back in the very beginning of the upper in discourse in chapter 13 verse 1 starts with these words. He loved them to the end. Isn't it interesting? It begins with that and ends with love.

These bookends of this remarkable disclosure of the love of God is of course marked from the beginning to the end with love. That's why Jesus said the greatest of the earth, the apostle Paul said the greatest of these is love. And so Jesus ends this final prayer of his discourse on the landing page of love. And why did he love them to the end? And this question is answered here.

And you know, He loves them to the end of their earthly lives for a love that would never end. And He would bring them into everlasting joy. So that's what this prayer is about. I want to summarize it. Well, I'm going to walk you through fairly quickly from the beginning to the end of it.

So please open your Bibles. I'd like you to look at each verse. And I just want to give us a renewed sense since it's been so long since we began this chapter. Now, you know, the first section in the first five verses, Jesus prays for himself, but remarkably, everything he prays for himself is for the benefit of his disciples. That's not like our prayers usually.

So first of all, he prays for his father to glorify him. He lifts up his eyes toward heaven. He says, father, the hour has come. Glorify your son that your son may also glorify you. His glorification is for the sacrifice for sin, to redeem and to justify sinners.

His glorification is for our justification and our glorification. And He's just praying about his role as Savior of the world. And then in verse 2, he acknowledges his authority to give eternal life. Look at that. His plan is revealed.

As you have given him authority over all flesh, that he should give eternal life to as many as you have given him." So he gives, God the Father gives eternal life to those whom God the Father is giving to the Son. Those are believers. Now the good news of the gospel, this is the greatest news of the gospel. The greatest news of the gospel is that God's love for you didn't start with you. If it started with you, that would be a problem.

But God's love started with love for His Son. In order for you to lose your salvation, it would require a breakdown of love between the Father and the Son. And there can be no breakdown. His love for you is not based on you. He didn't love you for who you are.

He loved you because he loved his Son and He was giving a bride to his son to be worshiped. So his love for you is not dependent upon you. Praise God for that. And then next he recounts the nature of eternal life, verse three. He just tells us what eternal life is.

And this is eternal life. Now that's a defining statement. That they may know you, the only true God, and Jesus Christ, whom you have sent. You can know God. And then he rejoices in his finished work in verse four.

I have glorified you on the earth. I have finished the work which you have given me to do. Jesus is minutes away from his arrest here when he says this. And then he prays for the restoration of his former glory, which he'll loop back to a number of times, or particularly in these last verses. Verse five, he says, and now, oh, Father, glorify me together with yourself with the glory which I had with you before the world was.

Two things. Jesus desires a return to his Father's glory. Secondly, he knows he has planned, he has ordained to include sinners who've been born again into that glory. And he delights in it. You'll see that delight in the verses that we're in today.

And then Jesus prays for the disciples. That's praying for himself. And then he prays for his disciples in verses 6 through 10. And of course they're overhearing this. There are these astonishing things that they hear.

I think they were blown away by what they heard in this prayer. I think if there was any background noise, they were trying to listen more intently because it was so astounding. You know what that's like. You know, there's chatter in the room and you want to hear what's going on. You're saying, would you please shut up?

But there are these astonishing things that he reveals to them And they learn about themselves. And in verse six, they learn that God made himself known to them. I have manifested your name to the men you have given me out of the world. They were yours. By the way, were yours.

Were yours. From the foundation of the world, they were his. Those whom He foreknew are those whom He forloved. Again, just another beautiful, helpful declaration of the security of the believer, which is secured by something greater than the believer. It's secured by an eternal love, an eternity past.

And then another astonishing thing they learn about themselves, that they are given to Him by the Father, to the men whom you have given Me. If you've been born again, you are a gift that God has given his Son. You have been given. This is in the past tense. It happened in eternity past.

And then notice in the next phrase there in chapter, in verse 6, at the end, they learn that they've been taken out of the world. He's taken them out of the world. He's made them distinct from the world. He's taken them off the broad road. They're out of the world.

They're no longer following in the ways of the world. You can always tell who the real Christians are. They're not following in the ways of the world anymore. They don't like it. If they still like it, they're still on the broad road.

That's the problem. And then, And this, I think this must have been so encouraging in the very last phrase in verse 6. Jesus says that his disciples kept his word. And they have kept your word. The disciples were regular men.

They're just like you and me. And they grieve over the ways they don't keep your word, His word. But Jesus is saying, they kept my word. But they weren't any more perfect men or imperfect than we are. But Jesus is saying, these are my children and they keep my word.

And then They understand that what Jesus taught was from God. Verse 7, they have known that all the things you have given me are from you. He's just disclosing to these bystanders that they know that His words have come from God. And then they learn that they are prayed for. Verse 9.

I pray for them. They learn that they are prayed for. And then they learn that they belong to Him. In verse 10, all are mine, all mine are yours, and yours are mine, and I am glorified in them." And Jesus is revealing to them who are overhearing that they are His property, that He owns them. Again, there's this language in the Bible that believers are His treasure.

It's what Peter says in 1 Peter, you are God's treasure. And then they learn that Jesus is glorified in them. I think this must have been very encouraging. In verse 10, in the second phrase, and I am glorified in them. Imagine Jesus saying to you, I am glorified in you.

I see my glory in you. Do you think Jesus says that about you? Do you think he sees his glory? Do you think he sees the image of his father in you? I do.

I do. I can see the glory of God in our people. It's such a beautiful thing. It's not perfected. It's being sanctified.

Thankfully, God's patient with us. But true disciples are being glorified. They have the glory of their Father upon them. And then, he uses some of the most comforting language in the Bible to me, kept. He uses the word kept.

He says, I'm no longer in the world, verse 11, but these are in the world, but I come to you, Holy Father, keep them through your name. Those whom you have given me, that they may be one as we are. He says, I have kept them in verse 12. The ones you gave me I have kept, and none of them was lost except the son of perdition that the scripture might be fulfilled. He will keep you.

The disciples are hearing, He will keep me. He's going to keep me. You know, there are two ways that you can think about being kept. Not thrown away on the one hand. You know, everybody, every, you know, most people want their spouses to keep them, you know.

Please keep me. But then there's another way of keeping, and that has to do with sustaining. I take it both ways. Don't you love that song? He will hold me fast.

He will hold me fast. And then, they hear something of the essence of his life in them using a three-letter word, joy. Verse 13. He's telling them that he is mentoring them by joy. So he says, but now I come to you and these things I speak in the world that they, my disciples, may have my joy fulfilled in themselves." He's going to his Father so that his disciples will have joy, more joy than they've ever experienced before.

Jesus going to heaven is for our joy." And he says elsewhere that everything he spoke was for their joy. These things I write to you that my joy may be made complete in you. The kingdom of heaven is joy. And then he reveals to them that they are kept from the evil one. Verses 14 through 16, 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, I do not pray that you should take them out of the world, but that you should keep them from the evil one. Jesus makes a promise in a backhanded way to his disciples by revealing to them that He is going to keep them from the evil one. In other words, He's going to keep them from being destroyed by the evil one. It doesn't mean that we won't be tempted. It means that we won't be destroyed in our temptations.

And by the way, neither should we destroy one another in one another's temptations. He won't. I love that word kept. Kept in His name, kept from the evil one. And then they learn in verse 17 that they are going to be changed by the truth, sanctified by the truth.

Sanctify them by your truth, your word is truth. This is the whole Christian life right here. And then they learn that they are going to be sent into the world with the truth. Verse 18, as you sent me into the world, I have also sent them into the world. And then in verse 19, they learn that Jesus has set himself apart and sanctified himself for their sake.

And for their sakes I sanctify myself, that they also may be sanctified by the truth." This is the doctrine, that Jesus willingly and freely offered up his life, setting himself apart as an offering for our sin, for our sake. He sanctified himself, setting himself apart for our sake, so that we might be sanctified. And then the gears shift a little bit in verse 20, and there's kind of an introduction, okay? See verse 20? Notice the change of the focus in the prayer.

He's praying for all who will become his children. So he prayed for himself, he prayed for his disciples, the 11 disciples right in front of his face. And then he prays for all of his disciples, beginning in verse 20. So he says, I do not pray for these alone, but also for those who will believe in me through their word. So he's praying now about the impact of the life of God in the soul of man.

What happens when the life of God enters your soul? That's the focus here. And now he's praying for outcomes. By the way, we talked about this quite a bit. The word that or in order that appears over and over in this section.

Jesus prays something in order that so that they're like outcomes. There's a practical, living, breathing outcome of the prayer. So, he says in verse 21, that, you see that word, that, is one of the most important words in the text. But He's praying here for God's likeness to be revealed in us, that they may be one, as you, Father, are in me and I in you. This is the unity of the Godhead and the purpose of that unity.

Why is God one so that you might be one with Him, so that we might be one without another? The doctrine of God is the fountain of truth for love. And if you get the doctrine of God wrong, if you get the doctrine of God the Father, God the Son, and God the Spirit wrong, you'll get everything else wrong. So, he prays for God's likeness to be revealed, and then he prays for belief in the world, verse 21, at the end of 21, that they also may be one in us, that the world may believe that you sent me. So this life of God in the soul of man, this fountain of waters, this upper and lower spring, this thing that happens to the human soul, it has a purpose and the world will see a different kind of community.

The world will believe because they see the unity. And then there's, then he prays regarding shared glory in verse 22, and the glory which you gave me, I have given to them that they may be one just as we are one. This is shared glory. We're back to the glory of God, you know, being expressed in the soul of man. And then There's this prayer for the perfection of God's attributes in verse 23 at the beginning.

I in them and you in me. That There you go again. That they may be made perfect in one. And by the way, we don't make ourselves, we are made. By an external force working in our hearts.

The Spirit of God, by the Word of God. We are made. This is in the passive. God does it. We're not self-made men and women.

Well, we were we were made in the image of God, and that was never meant to cease, as we were being remade in the image of God from the fall. And then in verse 23 at the end, there's this prayer for the manifestation of the love of God for them. That they, and that the world may know that you have sent me and have loved them as you have loved me." Okay, so in the previous verses, leading up to the text we're in today, he is alluding to his oneness with the Father and our oneness with one another. Now, just pull back for a second on this prayer. This prayer, it sweeps centuries and and eternal eras of history.

And at one place he's alluding to eternity past, in another place he's alluding to eternity future, in the next place he's focusing on the last three years of his life with his disciples. And then in another place, he prays about what they are going to experience in the near present, and even in the next few minutes. And so, It's like Jesus' prayer. It's as if he's on a giant keyboard and he's playing from one end of eternity to the next. And he goes out into the past, you know, into eternity past and he speaks of the love that the Father had for him in his everlasting glory in the past, and then he touches their lives the last three years, what he's doing with them, what he's going to do with them before they die, and then all off into eternity.

And it's like he's just going from one end of this massive keyboard to another, just trying to display his glory, and they're overhearing it. What an amazing prayer. And all of this is based on God's love for his son. I am so thankful for that. And so for your status to change, God must change his status with his Son.

So in order to lose your salvation, you have to first see God's love lost for his son. So this is the unbreakable bond of unity that's being displayed here. It is secure, it is unalterable, and it's bound by a promise. Okay, now Jesus shifts his prayer to his desire to be with him in heaven. He shifts from manifesting his glory on the earth to their experiencing his glory in heaven.

And that's what we get to when we hit verse 24. Father, I desire that, there's that word again, I desire that they also whom you gave me may be with me where I am. And so here in this verse, Jesus covers the whole span of their lives from before their birth to beyond the grave. He says that he desires this. He desires this.

The language that Jesus uses is the language of will, strong will. This is my will. He says, I personally will this will. Jesus passes through the heavens and comes to earth. He had in His will, which is consistent with His Father's will, to redeem sinners.

And his desire is to get the gift from his Father, because we are his treasure, 1 Peter 2, 9 and 10. We are his inheritance, Ephesians 1, 18. And the Father is giving the Son worshipers, and it's the Father's designed to make the broken of this world into happy and satisfied worshipers of Jesus, All unified, all bound together by love. Their sins are wiped away, the tears are wiped away from their eyes, and this is the will of Jesus. And he wants his disciples, he wills his disciples to have the same love that he shared with his father.

And Jesus is praying that they would be just safely delivered into heaven. This is His will. Some of you are familiar with the English Puritan, Richard Baxter. He wrote a book in the midst of the hardest time in his life. He His church was shut down.

He was sick sick sick every day for years. He was the subject of constant slander, he was imprisoned, and he determines that he will spend 30 minutes every day meditating on heaven. And I think he did it for 35 years. It's possible. And he wrote a book called, Saints Everlasting Rest.

You need to read it. It's a beautiful book. Astounding. Tender language, gripping, helpful perspective on life. He writes 100 pages alone on directions for meditating on heaven.

I'll summarize it for you. He says, take responsibility for directing your mind. Set your mind on things above. The direction of your mind. You know, say to your soul, talk to your soul about heaven.

You know, Lloyd-Jones, you know, he said that we spend too much time listening to our hearts, and we should spend more time talking to our hearts about what's true. We need to turn around all the time, but Baxter in this book, He says, take a walk in the New Jerusalem every day. Well, this is why in this church we desire everyone to be saved, to know and feel that Jesus is their Savior, and to experience the power of the resurrection by being born again with the power of sin broken, with the knowledge that your sins have been forgiven, that you have a new heart, that you're a new creature, that you've renounced the works of the devil and of this world, and that You no longer want to serve the deceiver and the hater of your soul. That's what we want more than anything else. Well, what is it really?

It's nothing more than a desire for everlasting joy, beginning right now. Will you remember earlier in the Gospel of John, we learned that you pass into eternal life the moment you're born again. You pass into that state of eternal life, not death. Will you go from death to life? Instantaneously.

The presence of God in heaven and the spiritual presence of God on earth is the most precious and helpful thing. You know, longing for the relief from our sorrows is probably our greatest recurring thought, desiring to be with Him. But David says, You will show me the path of life in Your presence as fullness of joy at your right hand, our pleasures forevermore. Take a walk in the New Jerusalem. Take a walk in the New Jerusalem every day.

You have troubles. Jesus desired that the knowledge of heaven would deliver you from your troubles. There's so many troubles in the world. That's why Jesus had already said in the upper-room discourse in chapter 14, let not your heart be troubled. You believe in God, believe also in me.

In my father's house are many dwelling places. He's already comforted them. He says, I go and prepare a place for you that where I am, there you may be also. And where I go, you know, and the way you know. This is the inheritance in heaven.

This is taking a walk in the New Jerusalem. Do you long for your inheritance in heaven? Paul told the Colossian church that they would receive an inheritance. Inheritances are free, by the way. You don't pay for them.

They come down upon you. Being justified freely by His grace through the redemption that is in Jesus Christ. Behold what manner of love the Father has given to us that we should be called the children of God. Beloved, now we are the children of God and it has not yet been revealed what we shall be. But we know that when He is revealed we shall be like Him, for we shall see Him as He is.

And everyone who has this hope in Him purifies himself just as he is pure. Take a walk in the New Jerusalem. Take a walk in the New Jerusalem every day. How about 30 minutes every day? That sounds pretty daunting.

You know, God told Eve in the garden that the day that she ate of the tree she would die, and now Jesus is saying that when you take on His name you will live. This is the intention of His will. And what's heaven like? Verse 24. That they may behold my glory, which you have given me, for you love me before the foundation of the world.

What is Jesus' glory in heaven? It's the radiance of every excellent thing, every beautiful thing coming from the Father's glory. All you have to do for just a little teeny bit of evidence, you just look around in the natural world. Look at the stars. Look at the clouds.

Look at the water. Look at—look anywhere, And you'll see astounding, incomprehensible wisdom of God laid out in the world. Beauty is everywhere here in this world. Everywhere. We can't get over it.

Everywhere you look, there's beauty. When Moses asked to see God's glory in Exodus 34, God said, OK, I'll let my goodness pass before you. My goodness. That's His glory. And beholding His glory is the thing that keeps us happy.

And that's why you should take a walk in the New Jerusalem every day to behold His glory. Heaven is a world of pleasure. Heaven is a world of purity. The Apostle writes, when he is revealed we shall be like him for we shall see him as he is. And it all starts with a meeting.

It starts with a meeting when the dead in Christ shall arise. A meeting in the heavens. All the graves will open up. Everybody who's ever lived and died will come out of those graves, wherever they are. God will reconstruct their bodies, whether they've been burned or drowned or lost or eaten by wild animals.

God will reconstruct their bodies. He created them. He's big enough to recreate them. And for the Lord Himself will descend from heaven with a shout, with the voice of an archangel and with the trumpet of God, and the dead in Christ shall rise first. Then we who are alive and remain shall be caught up together with them in the clouds to meet the Lord in the air.

And thus we shall always be with the Lord." And then he says, therefore comfort one another with these words. Take a walk in the New Jerusalem every day. And then you will see God. You will see God like you never saw Him before. You see now through a glass darkly, but then face to face.

Job anticipated, longed for this. He said, after my skin is destroyed, this I know, that in my flesh I shall see God. Jesus alluded to this in the Sermon on the Mount, blessed are the pure in heart, for they shall see God. Jesus spoke of this already in John, in John 3, verse 3. He said, most assuredly, unless one is born again, He cannot see the kingdom of God.

You'll see the kingdom of God. You'll see the kingdom of God here from your heart and the earth. And then you will see him as he really is in heaven. And there's this beautiful picture of this in John 7, a great multitude which no one could number of all nations, tribes, peoples, and tongues standing before the throne and before the Lamb, clothed with white robes with palm branches in their hands, crying out with a loud voice saying, salvation belongs to our God who sits on the throne and to the lamb. All the angels stood around the throne and the elders and the four living creatures fell on their faces before the Lord and worshiped God saying, Amen, blessing and glory and wisdom, thanksgiving and honor and power and might be to our God forever and ever.

And then he says, and then they're before the throne of God and they'll serve him day and night in his temple. And he who sits on the throne will dwell among them. They shall neither hunger any more nor thirst any more. The sun shall not strike them nor any heat, for the lamb who is in the midst of the throne will shepherd them and lead them to the fountains of waters, and God will wipe every tear from their eyes." Take a walk in the New Jerusalem. But sometimes life is hard here.

That's why Paul said, for I consider that the sufferings of this present time are not worthy to be compared with the glory which shall be revealed in us. Thomas Boston explained it like this, the divine perfections will be an unbounded field. In other words, what's heaven like? It's perfection unbounded, in which the glorified shall walk eternally, seeing more and more of God, since they can never come to the end of the infinite. They may bring their vessels to this ocean every moment and fill them with new waters.

You'll never get to the end of it. The happiness is unbounded. It's unrestrained. It's everlasting. It's not sitting around playing harps.

That just so massively underscore, under rates what's happening in heaven. Everybody is so happy. Even when they fall down on their faces, they're happy. And they're saying, oh God, you're so wonderful. Take a walk in the New Jerusalem.

Edwards says that their knowledge will increase to eternity. Their knowledge, their holiness, will increase. They will see more of His excellency, more of His beauty. The more they love Him, the more they love God, the more delight and happiness they will have in Him. That's heaven.

That's the saints that were lasting rest. So let me close with this. I think we understand that Jesus is finishing this prayer with another vision of heaven and how he's incorporating sinners into that place of everlasting joy. And in the prayer, he runs from one end of the keyboard to another, from eternity past into their very moment, their living, into the moments just very near ahead, and into eternity future. And all of it really is to envelop them in the knowledge of His will, that God is love, and that he desires to take them into his world of love.

Jonathan Edwards said in his book, Charity and its Fruits, it's a commentary on 1 Corinthians 13, heaven is a world of love. That sums it up. Heaven is a world of love. That sums it up. Heaven is a world of love.

So, rich, dense theology in this prayer, in this intimate conversation with His Father, the theology is so dense about God the Father and God the Son and the world and everything, the doctrine of salvation, it's all here. It's astounding. Here's my final words. If your theology of heaven does not touch the earth, it's not good theology. Because all good theology is applied on earth.

And if your Theology in heaven, if your theology of heaven doesn't touch the earth, then it will not take you to heaven, but it will die with you. Some people love theology, but they don't love the theos in the theology. And heaven is a world of love. And that world did reach the world that we live in, the person of Jesus Christ, who is the mediator of the love of God. And I think that's what this final section really is about.

It's the love of God, the Father toward His Son, and His enveloping love, gathering up His gifts in the world, gathering up his treasures, gathering up the inheritance. Jesus Christ gathering them up, the Father sending them to the Son, and the Son gathering them in his arms and taking them to heaven. And there are so many reasons that we ought to take a walk in the New Jerusalem every day. Let's pray. Lord, we thank you for this beautiful, this remarkable testimony that we've just observed, this wonderful love, this wondrous love that will not let us go, this wondrous love that encompasses all of eternity from the far, far, far past to the incomprehensible future, and right down to this very day, to today, how you've loved us to the end.

Lord, we're so grateful for this love. Amen.