They Believed That You Sent Me

John 17:7-8,1418,20-23 – Now they know that everything you have given me comes from you. For I gave them the words you gave me and they accepted them. They knew with certainty that I came from you, and they believed that you sent me…I have given them your word and the world has hated them, for they are not of the world any more than I am of the world…As you sent me into the world, I have sent them into the world…“My prayer is not for them alone. I pray also for those who will believe in me through their message, that all of them may be one, Father, just as you are in me and I am in you. May they also be in us so that the world may believe that you have sent me. I have given them the glory that you gave me, that they may be one as we are one— I in them and you in me—so that they may be brought to complete unity. Then the world will know that you sent me and have loved them even as you have loved me.

John 1:7,12-13 – He came as a witness to testify concerning that light, so that through him all might believe…Yet to all who did receive him, to those who believed in his name, he gave the right to become children of God—children born not of natural descent, nor of human decision or a husband’s will, but born of God.

John 20:31 – But these are written that you may believe that Jesus is the Messiah, the Son of God, and that by believing you may have life in his name.

Application:

• ·         Three things about the disciples are mentioned: (1) They accepted the teaching. (2) They knew with certainty Jesus’ divine origin. Acceptance of that revelation led them further into truth. (3) They believed.
• ·         “The world” is the world that is hostile to God and God’s people.
• ·         We may long for heaven, but it is on earth that our work is done.
• ·         Jesus’ prayer is a rebuke of the groundless and often bitter divisions among believers.
• ·         There are two indwellings here: that of the Son in believers and that of the Father in the Son.
• ·         John the Baptist’s singular ministry was to testify about Jesus.
• ·         Membership in God’s family is by grace alone—the gift of God.
• ·         Faith has content.

All Scripture verses taken from NIV