[0:00] All right, so before I go into reading it, just to kind of let you guys know this is Jesus' prayer. And he starts off by praying for himself, and then he transitions on praying for his disciples, and then he prays for those who will believe.
[0:16] And I'm going to take a pause when he's switching themes on who he's praying for, just so you guys can see that shift. All right, so I want you all to hear the Lord, like Jesus Christ, trust in the Father's sovereignty in this passage.
[0:31] So John 17, starting in verse 1. When Jesus had spoken these words, he lifted his eyes to heaven and said, Father, the hour has come. Glorify your Son that the Son may glorify you, since you have given him authority over all flesh to give eternal life to all whom you have given him.
[0:54] And this is eternal life, that they know you, the only true God, and Jesus Christ whom you have sent. I glorified you on earth, having accomplished the work that you gave to me to do.
[1:08] And now the work that you gave me to do, and now, Father, glorify me in your own presence, with the glory that I had with you before the world existed. I have manifested your name to the people whom you gave me out of the world.
[1:25] Yours they were, and you gave them to me, and they have kept your word. Now they know that everything that you have given me is from you. For I have given them the words that you gave me, and they have received them, and I have come to know in truth that I come from you.
[1:41] And they have believed that you sent me. I am praying for them. I am not praying for the world, but for those whom you have given me. For they are yours. All mine are yours, and yours are mine, and I am glorified in them.
[1:56] 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.
[2:09] 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.
[2:23] But now I am coming to you, and these things I speak in the world, that they may have my joy fulfilled in themselves. 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.
[2:40] I do not ask that you take them out of the world, but that you keep them from the evil one. They are not of the world, just as I am not of the world. Sanctify them in the truth.
[2:52] Your word is truth. As you sent me into the world, so I have sent them into the world. And for their sake, I consecrate myself, that they also may be sanctified in truth.
[3:06] I do not ask for these only, but also for those who will believe in me through their word, 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.
[3:27] The glory that you have given me, I have given to them, that they may be one even as we are one, I in them and you in me, that they may become perfectly one, so that the world may know that you sent me and I, and loved them even as you loved me.
[3:46] 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 foundations of the world.
[3:58] O righteous Father, even though the world does not know you, I know you, and these know that you have sent me, I made known to them your name, and I will continue to make it known, and the love with which you have loved me may be in them, and I in them.
[4:20] Amen. So we're going to get through all that today. Really just the first five verses.
[4:33] We're going to start a series on John 17. It's one of those passages that have just mesmerized me over the years, and it's kind of just tucked inside the Gospel of John, and it's really just always stirred my heart when I read it, and really just elevated my mind toward the eternal realm.
[4:56] You know, I've been feeling this week, even as I've been studying, for some reason, just have felt very alone, and very isolated.
[5:11] And even though I've had people around me, I've had my wife around me, I've had friends around me, I've even had a warm, furry, little chocolate lab puppy named Doc that was studying with me most all week, but even he didn't really do the job.
[5:27] He doesn't even talk back to you. He just sits there and looks at you. But I have felt just really alone, and I just want you to look, in chapter 16, just before this, and this was something that was just brought to my attention last night.
[5:47] But look at verse 31 of chapter 16. He says, Do you now believe? Behold, the hour is coming. Indeed, it has come when you will be scattered, each one to his own home, and will leave me alone.
[6:06] Yet I am not alone, for the Father is with me. And I got a little emotional last night as I thought about this, but not to the same intensity or degree at all, but I feel like God's allowed me just to feel a little bit, a tiny fraction of how Christ must have felt in this hour, to feel really alone.
[6:31] But then he's like, All of you are going to desert me. Can you imagine just all your closest companions just leaving you after they swore they wouldn't leave you and been just sitting in the dark by yourself?
[6:45] He says, I'm not alone though. The Father is with me. And so I've tried to keep that in my mind. As I was saying earlier, John 17 has been really revered and treasured by many, many, many people throughout the history of our family, the history of the church.
[7:05] And one old Puritan said this about this prayer. He says, If it be lawful to prefer one Scripture above another, we may say that though all be gold, this is a pearl in the gold.
[7:23] And though all be like the heavens, this is as the sun and stars. And I believe that's true. I think that many people have found that to be true as they've studied this passage.
[7:35] On my various pilgrimages to Scotland, I've had the opportunity to visit the home of John Knox in Edinburgh there on the Royal Mile twice.
[7:48] Knox was the reformer who brought the teachings of the Reformation back to Scotland. God used him in a mighty way to preach the gospel. But I've been to his house there on the Royal Mile, the house he actually, I believe, passed away in.
[8:05] And while he was in that house, he had his wife, mainly his wife, but also other people, read to him various passages of Scripture while he was laying on his deathbed.
[8:16] So the Psalms, different Psalms, Isaiah 53. But then, this is what he said, But most of all, please read John 17, because that is the place where I must first cast my anchor.
[8:35] And so, God used John 17, I think it was even being read out loud when he crossed over into the next life, to go and be with the Father.
[8:48] And it's such an overwhelming, immense passage. And I really just want to give you, you can spend a whole message on just an introduction to this chapter, so that you can really get your teeth into it.
[9:06] But I'll give you a little, try to give you a little introduction. So, this passage has ministered so much to me over the years, and I really pray that it does for you as we look at it over the next few weeks.
[9:20] But, in all truth, this is the real, the true Lord's Prayer. You may say, well, what about, you know, the Lord's Prayer in Luke 7 and in Matthew where, you know, Father, hallowed be your name, your kingdom come, etc.
[9:36] Like, isn't that the Lord's Prayer? Well, first off, the disciples are asking Jesus to teach them how to pray.
[9:47] So, He's like, how should we pray? So, that's how that starts. But then, secondly, there's a petition in that prayer that Jesus could not pray and would not pray.
[10:00] Does anybody take a guess at what it is? Forgive us our sins. Right? Jesus could never pray that prayer. He was the sinless Lamb of God. Peter wrote of Jesus, He committed no sin, neither was any deceit found in His mouth.
[10:17] So, it's more accurately called the disciples' prayer in many ways because it's a pattern for us to follow and for us to think of as we pray. And Jesus taught them to pray in that way.
[10:29] But this before us, John 17, is the real Lord's prayer. Though we know Jesus was constantly in prayer and devoted His life to prayer, very little if we don't know much of the content of Jesus' prayer.
[10:48] What did He pray? And here we have a whole chapter of what He actually spoke to the Father. So, very little is recorded about the content, but here we have all of this.
[11:02] And here we are ushered into the very throne room of God by Jesus, our great high priest. And we are permitted to eavesdrop on this beautiful, intimate, secret communion with the Son and the Father.
[11:21] And the veil is drawn back and we are admitted into the Holy of Holies. it's almost, if you remember those of you who have been doing our Bible reading plan, if you read some of Exodus where Joshua would sit near the tent of meeting just watching Moses engage with God and was just mesmerized by that interaction.
[11:44] That's sort of the privilege in a greater sense that we have here to sit and listen to this exchange between the Son and the Father. And here we are admitted to the secret place of the Most High is open for us to listen.
[12:01] So, a very amazing, amazing text before us. So I pray that we would listen to it and go through it with humble hearts that we would, our hearts would be stirred in reverence towards God.
[12:18] But, again, to get our hands around this fully, we have to look at the setting of where this is a little bit. But, I promise it won't be the whole message, but let me just think, just hold your hand there, look at John 13.
[12:36] Just go back a little bit. John 13 is what has been called Jesus' farewell discourse, or even the discourse of the upper room.
[12:49] It's John 13 through 16. And it's basically this long discourse on Jesus basically preparing to leave the world and to encourage his disciples.
[13:03] But if you look at 13, verse 1, it says, Now before the feast of the Passover, when Jesus knew that his hour had come to depart out of this world to the Father, having loved his own who were in the world, and he loved them to the end.
[13:22] So this is near the feast of the Passover. He knows that the time he's been on earth is coming to a close. And I love the fact that it says that he loved all who were given to him, even to the very end.
[13:38] And the disciples are anxious, they are afraid, worried, confused, listening to him, saying like I'm about to leave you and go back to the Father.
[13:52] If any of you have had a hero or a leader or mentor in your life that's really invested into you and was getting ready to go and die to be with the Father, and you would feel so alone, this is how they felt.
[14:07] In John 13, they shared the Last Supper, and Jesus humbly washed their feet and gave them the commandment to love one another as he had loved them. He even tells Peter, you will deny me.
[14:22] In chapter 13, you will deny me three times. It's a heartbreaking moment for Peter. Then in chapter 14, the discourse continues. Jesus tells them, I am the way, the truth, and the life.
[14:37] No one comes to the Father except through me. And he speaks of the promised Holy Spirit. He's saying, I'm not going to leave you alone. The helper, the comforter, the teacher, he's going to come and teach you all things and remind you of all that I have said.
[14:55] So a very amazing passage in 14 on the Holy Spirit. And then at the very end of the chapter, close to it, verse 31, he says to them in the upper room, rise and let us go from here.
[15:10] So they leave the upper room, begin that long walk to Gethsemane. And in chapter 15, Jesus continues to share with his disciples as they walk through the small, closed-end streets of Jerusalem.
[15:26] And we know that he would have walked because of where he was going. He would have walked right by the outer core of the temple. He would have gazed up at the temple on that night.
[15:39] And no doubt a stirring emotional sight to think that all of the lambs, other things that have been offered there, I'm about to bring all of that to a close.
[15:50] I am the final lamb of God, the sacrificial lamb. And he tells the disciples that since the world has hated him, they also will hate his disciples.
[16:05] They will persecute them. And finally in 16, so you can imagine just the intensity of all the stuff they've been hearing, they're quite frankly panicking in some measures.
[16:18] But one of our favorite verses, some of you are troubled today, some of you are really having a rough time. And I feel like a whole book could be written on this one verse.
[16:30] But look at just the end of chapter 16, the last verse, before we get into the prayer. Jesus closes this discourse by saying, I have said these things to you, that in me you may have peace.
[16:45] In this world you will have tribulation. Take courage, I have overcome the world. So that's his final words to them. That's how he wraps up this whole discourse.
[16:59] So that's how he ends up the time of the twelve, and he's like, yes, I'm going to die. Yes, on my account you will suffer and you will be persecuted, but I promise you I've overcome this world.
[17:13] So hold fast to me, because I will triumph in the end, and you will triumph in me. This is what he's told them. So we look at chapter 18, you look at verse 1, and it says that Jesus kind of pauses right before he goes over Kidron Brook that led to the Garden of Gethsemane.
[17:35] He stops right there and he prays. He lifts his eyes to heaven and he prays. And think about the tone of Jesus' prayer.
[17:48] The fact that even just in a few minutes he'll be in the garden praying alone and sweating great drops of blood was such a huge cosmic burden laid on him at that time.
[18:03] The thought of the cross and bearing the wrath of his father all on his shoulders. Yet, okay, yet all that is there. The tone of Jesus' prayer is one of confidence and quiet trust in his sovereign father.
[18:21] Deeply intimate, deeply reverent, deeply humble and bold. So, right before he's about to be betrayed, arrested, beaten, crushed, crucified, Jesus prays.
[18:36] And as Caleb told you, sort of an outline for this prayer is one through five, Jesus prays for himself. The key in this is the father's glory.
[18:48] And in six through nineteen, he prays for his disciples. And the key for that passage is preservation. And then, this will be an emotional week for me, but Jesus actually prayed for you and for me.
[19:05] And the key to that is oneness, our unity. He prays for that. So, we're going to go over a few points here.
[19:17] We're going to go over four facets of God's saving purpose. Four facets of God's saving purpose. Each that is centered on the cross of Christ and his redemptive work on the cross.
[19:31] Alright? So, number one. Well, let me just read that. Let's go back and just read one through five again really quick. when Jesus has spoken these words, he lifted his eyes to heaven, a sign of reverence, and said, Father, the hour has come.
[19:52] Glorify your Son, that the Son may glorify you, since you have given him authority over all flesh, to give eternal life to all whom you have given him. And this is eternal life, that they know you, the only true God, and Jesus Christ, whom you have sent.
[20:10] I glorified you on the earth, having accomplished the work that you gave me to do. And now, Father, glorify me in your own presence with the glory that I had with you before the world existed.
[20:24] So, here we go. Facets of God's saving purpose, each centered on the cross of Christ. Number one, the reverence Christ deserves.
[20:37] The reverence Christ deserves. You see this in verses one and verse five. So, the main burden on the heart of Jesus in this prayer is glory.
[20:48] The Father's glory, and in turn, his own rightful glory. We could spend forever unpacking what the glory of God means, but I just want to say this morning, simply put, God's glory is the sum total of all he is and all he has done.
[21:09] His attributes, his character, his manifold perfections, his excellencies, his works, his accomplishments in creation, redemption, how great he truly is, how awesome he is, all summed up into one word, glory.
[21:25] Glory in the Bible is an attempt to put into words what cannot be contained in words. That's the immensity of just the word itself. So, as fallen human beings, you and I, we struggle with the idea of someone asking for glory.
[21:45] So, if I came in here and I said, worship me, glorify me, I am awesome, hopefully I would be kicked out of here. But why? Why would it be wrong for me to ask that?
[21:58] Or for you to ask that? The answer is, every one of us in here, myself, you, we have countless imperfections, failures, and sins.
[22:11] We are broken people. We are not worthy of that kind of attention, that kind of glory. That's why we struggle with that. I like you, but not that much.
[22:23] You're not worthy of that amount of glory. However, we mistake God seriously when we put him in that category.
[22:34] He's the only being in existence, period, that is completely flawless, infinitely perfect. He alone is worthy of all our worship, all our praise, all our love.
[22:48] So I had to get a quote in from Jonathan Edwards, my homeboy. God, in one of his books, he wrote this, and talking about why we should glorify someone and why we should not.
[23:03] Our obligation to love, honor, and obey any being is in proportion to his loveliness, honorableness,! and authority. God is a being of infinite loveliness because he is infinitely excellent and beautiful.
[23:21] honorable. He is a being of infinite greatness, majesty, and glory, and therefore he is infinitely honorable. So in short, what he's saying is that it is right for us to give glory to someone in proportion to that person's excellence.
[23:42] So our excellence ends at some point, but God does not. He has infinite excellence and therefore worthy of infinite glory. glory. Get your head around that.
[23:54] So he prays for the Father's glory and uses the term glorify three times in these two verses. Simply put, again, no big analogies, no much time to spend on this, but to glorify really just means to expose, unveil, put on display one's glory that was formerly kind of hidden, if you would, to put it on display.
[24:20] So Jesus is simply saying, Father, at this time, reveal, unveil, put on display the greatness of all you are through this cruel death I'm about to endure.
[24:33] And also, Father, at this same time, expose and reveal who I truly am as your Son. If you remember, Christ's glory has been hidden.
[24:45] Much of who he is has been hidden throughout most of his life. We had glimpses of that from time to time, but most of you will recall the phrase that's repeated a lot throughout the Gospels.
[24:56] What is it? My time has not yet come. The hour has not yet come. It's not time for my true identity and my true mission to be revealed yet.
[25:08] Right? But, remember, Christ's glory was hidden, but now is it about to be made known. So, how would this happen?
[25:21] The Father on the cross would display both his perfect justice, his perfect righteousness, and at the same time reveal love and mercy and grace to sinners.
[25:32] At the same time, he would be both the just and the justifier of the one who has faith in Christ. So, we saw glimpses of Christ's glory even at the transfiguration, salvation, but the cross, the time had now come for Jesus to face it, and the cross was the climax of the Son's desire to glorify the Father.
[25:56] and it would result in the Father glorifying and honoring the Son. Only a few places to turn, but look at Philippians chapter 2.
[26:08] Hold your hand in John 17. And I want you to see in Philippians 2, verse 6 through 11, that Christ had our desire, though He was equal with the Father, had our desire to glorify His Father through His work here on the earth.
[26:30] But then, the Father would turn around and honor the Son for that work. Look at verse 6. He's talking about Jesus, who, though He was in the form of God, did not count equality with God a thing to be grasped, but emptied Himself by taking on the form of a servant, and being born in the likeness of man, and being found in human form.
[26:58] He humbled Himself by becoming obedient to the point of death, even death on a cross. Therefore, God has highly exalted Him, and bestowed on Him the name that is above every name.
[27:12] So at the name of Jesus, every knee should bow, in heaven and on earth and under the earth, and every tongue confess that Jesus Christ is Lord, to the glory of God the Father.
[27:26] Do you see that? This was Christ's humility. He came, though He existed in the form of God, He stepped down from the high place and came and walked among us in human flesh, took on the form of a servant, doulos, bond servant, or bond slave.
[27:46] He walked among us and He humbled Himself, He was obedient every minute, every second to the Father here on earth, and that climaxed, right, even to death on a cross.
[28:00] And so because of that, right, the Father then glorified the Son, gave Him that name above every name. Then eventually, right, every tongue will confess that Jesus Christ is Lord.
[28:13] So, amazing passage, amazing passage, that the giver of life gave Himself to die, and that the one who honors the Father will in turn be honored.
[28:28] So, Jesus is asking for that. But go back to John 17. This is probably one of the verses in this little small text that I've been particularly caught by.
[28:42] Look at verse 5. Jesus takes this idea for glory even further by asking, Father, glorify me in Your own presence with the glory that I had with You before the world existed.
[28:59] Jesus is not being selfish here. It's not selfish to ask for what rightfully belongs to You. Jesus is praying for that intrinsic glory that belongs to Him by virtue of being the Son of God.
[29:16] Do you see that? Do you see what He's asking? Jesus existed eternally with the Father before you and I ever existed, before the world was created.
[29:32] Ponder that. He existed in sweet, joyful oneness and communion with the Godhead. So that means that He didn't create us because He was lonely and because He needed us.
[29:47] He was perfectly satisfied in all His glory before the world existed. He did not need to create anything. So why did He?
[30:01] St. Augustine wrote this, talking to God in a prayer. He said, God, what would have been lacking in your good, which you yourself are, even if these things of creation had remained unformed?
[30:17] You didn't create them out of any lack, but out of an abundance of your goodness. You ordered them and turned them toward form, but not because your joy had to be perfected by them.
[30:31] So out of abundance of His goodness God created, not because of a need. So Jesus is saying He existed eternally with the Father and all the splendor and majesty that existed.
[30:45] And He's saying, Father, take me back to that. What I left behind to come here, bring me back to that place. restore to me that glory I shared in your own presence.
[30:59] Glory to God. Secondly, saving purposes of God on the cross. This is all about Jesus. The second point, the right Christ possesses.
[31:13] The right that Christ possesses. Look at verse 2. Since you have given Him authority over all flesh to give eternal life to all whom you have given Him.
[31:25] Jesus is the rightful King over two things, over all mankind, over everyone to ever have lived. And then it says to grant salvation, to grant eternal life to all the Father has given Him.
[31:41] And both areas of authority are given to the Son by the Father. They're granted to the Son by the Father. Father. And this is this idea that Jesus lived a holy, submissive, obedient life, and that reward, really, if you want to call it that, was that He would be given authority over all people.
[32:04] So, God granting authority to the Son marks the dawn of a new era in redemptive history that was prophesied about by Isaiah, by Daniel, 700 years prior to this even.
[32:20] Daniel prophesied in chapter 7, verse 13, I saw in the night visions and behold with the clouds of heaven there came one like the Son of Man.
[32:34] And He came to the Ancient of Days and was presented before Him. And to Him was given glory, dominion, and a kingdom, that all peoples, nations, and languages should serve Him, His dominion is an everlasting dominion which shall not pass away, and His kingdom one that shall not be destroyed.
[32:57] Christ is that King. He is that King. He was the one that God granted that authority to. If we remember toward the very end of the Gospel of Matthew, Jesus said to them, all authority in heaven and on earth has been given to me.
[33:16] authority. So, He's been granted this authority as the rightful king because of His obedience to the Father. So, first, let's break this up over two areas.
[33:28] It says that Jesus has been granted authority. first, over all creation, over all things, visible and invisible, all mankind. Throughout His earthly ministry, Jesus demonstrated that authority on multiple occasions through His teaching, through His healings, exorcisms, miracles.
[33:51] Divine Divine authority seemed to be coming from Jesus, and people recognized this. Yet, perhaps the most shocking to the audience was the fact that He claimed He could forgive sins, and claimed that He was God, and that He would judge the world, right?
[34:11] And so, even in our context today in John 17, what's amazing is not for one second did Jesus relinquish that power. Here's what I mean by that.
[34:23] He humbly submitted to His captors and allowed Himself to be dragged off to death when He could have ended it at any moment, but He didn't. Even before the Roman governor, Pilate, He said to Pilate, sitting there, you know, beaten, bloody, bruised, Pilate basically says, I have the power to set you free.
[34:45] And Jesus responds to him, you have no authority over me at all unless it has been given to you from above. And then earlier in John, Jesus says, for this reason, the Father loves me because I lay down my life that I may take it up again.
[35:07] No one takes it from me, but I lay it down on my own accord. I have authority to lay it down, and I have authority to take it up again. This is the charge I have received from my Father.
[35:20] So, though He had that authority, humbly laid Himself down to die. And this would result in the redemptive work that we needed.
[35:33] So, that's the first area of authority over all creation. He ruled even all things through the Word of the Father. But secondly, and we'll spend more time on this next week and the weeks to come.
[35:46] Secondly, it says that He had been given authority by the Father to give eternal life to all whom the Father had given Him. Verse 2, So, this is the truth, the reality, that the Father has chosen and given a people to the Son to save and to be His people.
[36:07] It's repeated three times in this prayer. Look at verse 6, I have manifested your name to the people who you gave me out of the world.
[36:19] Yours they were and you gave them to me. Verse 24, Father, I desire that they also whom you have given me. So, this was God's eternal plan to call out a people to save.
[36:35] The plan of redemption was not left up to a whim. It wasn't left up to the will of man. It wasn't left up to just luck. It was ordained by the Father.
[36:47] It was the plan that was being worked out from eternity past. And it says that he has authority to give eternal life to all those whom the Father had given him.
[37:01] Amazing. John 6. Go ahead and turn there. You're in John anyway. Flip back a few pages. Just so eternal life is not something that God rewards man with is something that's only granted by his grace.
[37:24] He's not obligated to save anyone. But as we see it is the Father's desire that a people be given to the Son to save.
[37:35] John 6 verse 36 But I say to you you have seen me and you do not believe. Listen to this. All that the Father gives me will come to me and whoever comes to me I will never cast out for I have come down from heaven not to do my own will but the will of him who sent me.
[37:58] And this is the will of him who sent me that I should lose nothing of all that he has given me but I will raise it up on the last day. So a guarantee that he says they will come to me.
[38:13] The people that the Father has given me to save will come to me and when they do I will not cast them out. It is the Father's desire that I not lose any that he has given to me. Let that be a comfort to you.
[38:25] Don't let that bother you. Let it be like God has worked in me. He started something and he will finish it. See it that way. We'll talk about this more weeks to come but this is another area of authority that the Father has given to his Son to give eternal life to all that he has received.
[38:44] So thirdly, point number three, just this one and one more, but this was, as my dad said, this is the big one. The relationship Christ offers.
[39:00] the relationship Christ offers. Verse three, and this is eternal life. They know you, the only true God and Jesus Christ who you have sent. What comes to your mind when you hear the phrase eternal life?
[39:16] Many in our world and even in church culture think it simply means to not die, to live forever, and to go to heaven, not perish.
[39:28] All true, right? All those things are true. All those things are true. But though they're true, that's not exactly what eternal life means.
[39:39] In fact, those are the result of something else that comes. And we see in our verse that it's knowing God. You see that?
[39:50] A long time ago, I was reading a book in the hospital by John Fiber called God is the gospel. He says it's probably the most important book he's ever written.
[40:03] So check it out. God is the gospel. And in that book, he asked something like this. If you could die right now and go to heaven and have all the pleasures that this earth has to offer you, everything, all the food, all the rest, all the entertainment, all the sex, whatever it is, have that for eternity, have basically everything in this world maximized for eternity.
[40:34] Would you go there? But the only catch is Jesus is not there. Do you still want to go? And that scared me a little bit.
[40:45] I stood back. What have you turned heaven into? you? Is it something that separated from the Son of God? In our text today, Jesus said eternal life is knowing the only true God in Jesus Christ and he is sent.
[41:03] So just being shut out of a relationship with God was a consequence of the fall. So now entering back into that relationship is central to having eternal life.
[41:16] it's that simple. Like what we lost in Genesis 3 is now being restored. That's what's so central is this relationship. So the Greek word for know here is an experiential involvement, personal involvement.
[41:35] The Greeks used this word to imply a mystical secret communion with the deity. A transcendent knowledge that went beyond the mundane, beyond what the common people knew.
[41:49] And then the Hebrew equivalent of this word, know, is an intimate knowledge, union, love bond, and even use of intercourse at times.
[42:00] Very intimate word. So this idea of know has both the idea of transcendent knowledge with the deity, but also an intimate love bond.
[42:12] What a warming theological concept for us to have, knowing God and knowing his son. So I pray this morning that you're not just someone who knows about God, who can explain who God is, but you actually know God.
[42:28] There's a difference. We know about the president, but none of us know the president. Bad example, but you know what I'm trying to say. None of us, you have to know Christ.
[42:42] This is so central to the New Testament. Many years ago, I saw a book on a friend's shelf that I took off, and it says, the tragedy of religion without relationship.
[42:56] And I read a part of it, and it points out in Matthew 7, where many people will come to Jesus on that day of judgment, and will say to him, we did all these things for you, Jesus, we cast out demons in your name, we did all these magnificent works in your name.
[43:14] So, and then Jesus says, I will look at them, and I will say to them plainly, depart from me, I never knew you. The same word, you who practice lawlessness.
[43:28] We must know Christ, and we must know the Father through the Son. So, rejoice the fact that Jesus, has opened that up for us.
[43:39] What we lost is now being restored by him, through the perfect obedience of Christ on the cross. So, knowing Jesus as our Savior, our Messiah, deliverer from the wrath of God, but also as our rightful king, who we would die for, who we follow on a daily basis.
[44:00] But then our treasure, our most prized possession, that nothing in life compares to him. I would have you turn here, but I feel like I've had you turn enough, but a very familiar text, Philippians 3, 7 and 8.
[44:19] Paul says, whatever gain I had, I count it as loss for the sake of Christ. Indeed, I count everything as loss because of the surpassing worth of knowing Christ Jesus my Lord.
[44:35] For his sake, I have suffered the loss of all things and count them as rubbish in order that I might gain Christ. Christ. So, are you willing to take everything in this world, money, possessions, finances, wealth, land, houses, and consider them as garbage in comparison to knowing Christ Jesus our Lord?
[45:02] Would you trade a lifetime of spending your days on hobbies, books, movies, TVs, smartphones? Would you trade an entire life of that for just one hour with the king?
[45:18] Are you willing to take your food, your diet, your exercise, your clothes, your physical appearance and count them as rubbish, as trash compared to being accepted by the king?
[45:34] Are you trying to win the approval of man with those things? Or is it enough that Jesus accepts you and the you belong to him? Are you willing to take all your earthly relationships, your friends, your family, husband, wife, children, grandparents, all these things, boyfriends, girlfriends, can you place them on one side of the scale and then put Christ on the other and say that Christ outweighs all of them?
[46:01] Could you do that? Could you count all things lost as rubbish compared to the worthiness of Christ and knowing him? Some people will be miserable in heaven because they didn't want to go there because of Jesus.
[46:16] And then, in fact, they won't be there. Jesus is all the glory in heaven. A hymn that's been really dear to me the last couple of years, written by Ann Ross in the 1800s, is called The Sands of Time Are Sinking, and it's about eternity.
[46:35] But, speaking of the bride, us as the church, in Jesus the bridegroom it says this, The bride's eyes are not on her garment, but on her dear bridegroom's face.
[46:51] I will not gaze at glory, but on my King of grace. Not on the crown that he giveth, but on his pierced hands.
[47:02] the Lamb is all the glory in Emmanuel's land. I pray that that's our confession, that that's where we want to go, because Jesus is there.
[47:16] We would go right now, even if we could. So, lastly, the requirement Christ meets. Fourthly and lastly, the requirement that Christ meets.
[47:29] And look at verse four. I glorified you on the earth, having accomplished the work that you gave me to do. This was a work that none of us could accomplish.
[47:41] None of us individually or combined could ever accomplish. The law of God, the holiness of God, totally without of our grasp. So, what work is Jesus referring to here?
[47:56] It's the work of accomplishing all that is required in the Father's plan of redemption. Everything. Jesus sought to glorify His Father by accomplishing that redemptive plan that He had set forth to save sinners.
[48:12] This was the eternal plan from the Father that would reverse the effects of the fall, that would restore us back to God, save us from His wrath, and make us be able to live a life that glorified Him once again.
[48:26] So, the work of pleasing His Father consumed Jesus His entire life. My food is to do the will of Him who sent me and to accomplish His work.
[48:40] I can do nothing on my own because I seek not my own will but the will of Him who sent me. A few places in John where that's repeated. Jesus accomplished that plan, okay, He accomplished that plan by living His entire life in joyful obedience and humility service towards the Father.
[49:05] He lived a totally sinless, upright, and blameless life. And He even challenged His adversaries, people that were attacking Him. And He's like, which one of you can convict me of sin?
[49:20] Which one of you? And none of them could. The writer of Hebrews says that He was tempted in all ways, in all things, just as you and I were, yet without sin.
[49:32] We were even tempted by the devil himself in the wilderness, but yet he resisted. And later, the writer of Hebrews describes Jesus as holy, innocent, undefiled, separated from sinners.
[49:47] 7, 26. So this life work of Jesus glorifying the Father culminated, climaxed at the cross, which we just read in Philippians.
[49:59] So the result of that work was this blameless life that He lived had two sides of it. first, that perfect life, that perfect righteousness was given to us so that we could stand righteous and clean, blameless before the Father.
[50:16] And then our sin was put on Jesus, and then He bore the punishment, the wrath of God. We know 2 Corinthians 5, 21.
[50:27] For our sake He made Him to be sin, Jesus, who knew no sin, so that in Him we might become the righteousness of God. So though Jesus was sinless, God treated Him as if He had sinned.
[50:43] And though we were sinful, now God treats us as though we had not because of the perfect righteousness of Christ. Huge stuff there, but basically the requirement that Christ meets, the work He accomplished was everything needed for the plan of redemption.
[51:02] So, are you in awe of these words today? Jesus would open up to sinners like us a secret, intimate place with the Father for us to look into.
[51:16] And does your soul rejoice at seeing these glimpses of glory that are ahead of us in these saving purposes that are revealed in the cross of Christ.
[51:28] So, in the weeks to come, we'll talk about how Jesus goes on to pray for His disciples. But then, astoundingly, He prays for you. In all my years in the hospital, I had a lot of people come pray for me.
[51:42] People I revered, people that I would just tremble when they prayed. I can't imagine if Jesus was just sitting there by you and then prayed for you.
[51:53] Could you not face anything after that? Well, He did. He prayed for you. And He prayed for me. So, glory to God. Let's pray together.