"SENT WITH JESUS"

You can have the four fastest runners in the world and still lose the race in the handoff.

John 17 is a handoff moment. On his last night before the cross, Jesus stops walking, lifts his eyes to heaven, and prays out loud so his disciples can hear it — and he prays for three things: that he would finish his mission, that his disciples would continue it, and, astonishingly, that we would run our leg of it. Verse 20: "I do not ask for these only, but also for those who will believe in me through their word." That's you. Moments before the cross, you were on his mind, and he prayed for you.

This message walks through what Jesus asks the Father for on behalf of his people — security that doesn't rise and fall on your performance, sanctification that sets you apart in the world rather than out of it, and a sending that carries his own authority. And it lands on this: Hebrews 7:25 says he "always lives to make intercession." John 17 isn't just a prayer Jesus prayed once in the dark outside Jerusalem. It's what he is doing right now, at the right hand of the Father, for you.

The baton has been passed down through 2,000 years of faithful, broken, ordinary people. Now it's your leg — your generation, your city, your neighborhood, your relationships. And the one who handed it to you hasn't walked away from the race.

Secure in him. Set apart by his word. Sent into the world as his.

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