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"The
Lord's Prayer, Pt.1" • 2.16.20 • Calvary Christian
Fellowship, Sunday Morning Service
Intro.
Text
• John 17:1,2 : "Jesus spoke these words, lifted up His eyes to heaven, and said:
'Father, the hour has come. Glorify Your Son, that Your Son also may
glorify You, as You have given Him authority over all flesh,
that He should give eternal life to as many as You have given Him." : There is no break between chapters 16 and 17. We
know from chapter 18:1 that they will only cross the Kidron after this
part of His prayer has ended.
- They are somewhere between Jerusalem and the
Kidron valley on their way to the Mount of Olives. We may not know exactly
where they stood, but we remember what it is that He had said.
- Jesus has just spoken these words: "In
the world you will have tribulation; but be of good cheer, I have overcome the
world." (John 16:33) Jesus is about to pray from that vantage
point.
- He has conquered the world! He has followed
His Father's steps without the stain of sin, without allowing the world to
affect His loyalty.
- He has turned from looking at His disciples
and now lifts His eyes toward the sky. It may surprise you that this was the
posture of prayer that was common among the people at Christ's time.
- They would lift their eyes and their hands. This
is why Paul will instruct Timothy to commend the practice of men praying while
"lifting up holy hands." (I Timothy 2:8)
- The world calls the contents of Matthew
6:9-13, "The Lord's Prayer." The problem is that He cannot pray
that prayer because in it, the person praying asks for forgiveness!
- That prayer is actually, "The Disciples'
Prayer." What we have before us is the Lord's Prayer!
- He is beginning His prayer to His Father, one that will
continue until it's completion which can be read in Matthew 26:36-46 or Luke
22:39-46. His prayer is quite different for ours.
- We turn our eyes in faith to God, believing
in faith that we are being heard. We pray as dependants, hoping to gain wisdom,
strength or hope. We pray with humble hearts of submission.
- When Jesus prays, He knows where it is going
and who receives it! He knows the face of His Father and the magnificence of
His heavenly home!
- In this part of His prayer, He comes in as an
equal, knowing that He can speak directly and confidently to the Father! It's a
privilege to stand near, as we are, to receive this.
- Can you imagine though, knowing these things
as reality and yet also knowing that His hour has come. Think of the irony of
that!
- The eternal Son of God, who has always
existed, acknowledges that His life is about to be sacrificed within this very
"hour" in human history that He has come to fulfill in time and
space!
- When the heavens were created, Jesus stood
above and outside of His creation. Before the foundations of the earth, Jesus
was slain in the mind of His Father! (Revelation 13:8)
- Everything in the Bible has been leading up
to this very hour. All of the types and shadows find their substance in what is
about to happen and all of heaven is standing at attention.
- Jesus is not praying for the hour to pass.
Jesus is praying that this hour will bring the intended results, beginning with
the Father glorifying the Son. We've examined this word before.
- Jesus is praying that His Father will
"esteem" and honor Him. The world will revile, insult and injure Him,
but the Father will glorify Him! "Glorify Your Son!" This is written
as an imperitive!
- This is not a request, as much as it is a
command from one equal to another! No other person can speak to the Father with
such authority!
- The Son alone can call for this because this
is what He deserves. This is His right! This moment in history will be the
moment of glory for the Son of God. Why?
- Jesus will perfectly fulfill the types and
shadows of redemptive history. He will give substance to the sacrifice that
covered Adam and Eve, the acceptable sacrifice made by Abel before God.
- He will be the Lamb that God would provide in
the mount, instead of Isaac and the Lamb whose blood would cause the Angel of
death to passover the Hebrew houses in Egypt!
- He is the Lamb that will end the sacrificial
system of Israel's Temple and will be John the Baptist's Lamb that takes away
the sin of the world!
- Additionally, Jesus will perfectly obey His
Father and become the eternal emblem of the Godhead's claim to righteousness,
justice and mercy! Indeed, "esteem, honor, glorify the Son!"
- The world will do all that it can to squelch
the Light Of the World. Their actions will only facilitate the Light shining
for eternity, as God makes the Name of His Son, the Name above all!
- Jesus wants His dignity raised, He desires
that His esteem will be raised in the eyes of the world. This isn't about ego,
but about what is rightfully deserved.
- Jesus deserves to be the center of the
world's attention, to receive the honor due His Name for what He is about to
accomplish, but that being the right action, is not the Lord's motive.
- Why does He want to be glorified? For the
purpose of having a greater stage upon which to bestow glory upon the Father!
- I thought about the words of the Apostle
James here when he admonished the early church about their requests and perhaps
why they were not answered.
- It's because they asked amiss, wanting to
spend their answered prayer upon their own pleasures! (James 4:3) The
Lord's model was to have a raised platform for His Father's glory!
- Maybe that would spark a thought in you as
you pray. Why would you want any new thing, either materially or publically?
Shouldn't it be for that you might better serve God's reputation?
- I can think of no better reason and it is
entirely in line with the Lord's prayer here!
- Jesus wants God to be recognized, glorified
and esteemed because in recognizing the proper center of worship, the world is
given the opportunity to be freed from it's other helpless gods!
- The Psalmist tells us that our God dwells in
heaven and does what He pleases, unlike the supposed gods of this world, who
have not ability to affect anything.
- One might wonder what the harm is in
worshipping an idol if it is nothing. The Psalmist concludes that those who
make them are like them! (Psalm 115:8)
- If you worship something less than God, you
are in danger of taking on those attributes. What you value will eventually
shape your character and eventually with determine your destiny!
- Those that look loving and longingly in the
face of the true God cannot help but be like Him!
- The joy of the Lord was to be able to give His
Father the praise that He deserves and to give the people that love Him, the
life, the reward, that He, Jesus, had earned!
- Jesus wasn't wanting to receive anything per
se. He already has it all! His greatest joy would be to give those He loved the
gifts that He had!
- To see the Father as worthy of glory and the
Son as the ruler of all things, opens the door for men to receive from the Lord
the gift of eternal life! Who does He give that life to?
- As many as the Father had given Him! All will
live eternally, but those that trust in Christ will have eternal life! Jesus
expounds on this in verse 3.
• John 17:3 : "And this is
eternal life, that they may know You, the only
true God, and Jesus Christ whom You
have sent." : What is
eternal life? It is beyond "biology."
- This word refers to fullness and vitality. It
is what animates the body. It is that which belongs to God and is given to
those that love His Son!
- It is not tied to your physical body, which
only allows your life to be seen. It is tied to your spirit, who you actually
are and what you are being made in Him!
- Like the Father, this life, this
"zoe" is eternal, everlasting, without beginning or end. It is the
life that the Godhead has always enjoyed and was gifted to you at your conversion!
- When you believed upon Christ, He conferred
upon you the life that will never end!
- Jesus wants His people to enjoy the life that
He and the Father shared! That is eternal life! But don't believe that the main
attraction is duration. As I said earlier, all will live eternally.
- There are those that will live eternally
regretting their decision to not accept what will be patently obvious to them
then, namely that Christ was in fact, worthy of their submission and life!
- That life will not be one that will be one
that will bring any joy. The life that Jesus wants His people to have will be
one filled full of the knowledge of God!
- That is the real and abiding value of eternal
life! God's people will have the opportunity to intimately experience the
Father forever! That is the force of the language here!
- Jesus is praying that the possesors of
eternal life would experience an ever increasing, intimate and personal
knowledge of God the Father, the only true God.
- Eternal life is the privilege of an ongoing
and ever expanding intimate relationship with God and in the same sentence,
with the Son that He has sent!
- Does Jesus mean to diminish Himself as less
than God by not including Himself in the phrase, "the only true God?"
Not at all. There is equality in the Godhead as well as distinction.
- There is hierarchy, especially as it pertains
to the roles that each member has assumed.
- When Jesus came to Earth, He humbled Himself,
adding humanity to His deity, submitting Himself to the plan of the Father to
be the "Annointed One."
- When He returns to heaven, all things will be
put under His feet with the exception of the One who put all things under His
feet, the Father! (I Corinthians 15:27)
- Even in heaven, the Godhead arranges itself
in this equal hieracrchy with an equal desire to glorify one another. Verse 4.
• John 17:4,5 : "I have glorified You on the earth. I have finished the work which You
have given Me to do. And now,
O Father, glorify Me together with
Yourself, with the glory which I
had with You before the world was." : Jesus has spent His entire life working from one motive, namely
to bring glory to the Father.
- He has set out to honor and raise the esteem
of the Father. What a great motive for you and I to emulate! Does the world
think more highly of God because you are on the planet?
- Do they see in you the characteristics of
Christ, the fruit of His Spirit? This is why you are on this planet! Jesus set
out to do this and He had done so! He had glorified the Father on the Earth!
- How had He glorified the Father? With the
same actions that Christians are called to!
- Jesus was the perfect obedient Son, speaking
those things that the Father gave Him the voice to speak, without fear. He
acted in accordance with His will perfectly, without sin or failure!
- The Lord's ultimate act of glorification
would be in finishing the work that the Father sent Him to do. Notice the tense
of the phrase that Jesus uses. "I have finished the work!"
- In the mind of Christ, even before His
crucifixion, He had "completed" or "perfected" the work
that God had given Him! Even now, on their way to Gethsemane, all that is left
to do is to do it!
- That is the perfection of Christ: He could
say that something was finished and know that He would not fail! The cross
would be His greatest and most satisfying achievement.
- It would bring profound glory to the Father,
but it would also open the door to all His sons!
- It will take it's toll mentally, physically,
spiritually and emotionally, but His honor of the Father demanded that He
finish His work! What would be His reward?
- To be honored by and with His Father and to
return to the glorious position that He enjoyed before the world was formed!
This again, is an imperative!
- Jesus is speaking in command language. It is
His right to assume that the honor He once held would be completely restored
unto Him. It was honor that He shared with the Father!
- Jesus is deserving of the same honor that is
bestowed upon the Father! For those that have ever questioned whether Jesus
made a claim to deity, here is the latest in a long string!
- If any other person on Earth talked about
having the same honor as God, we would rightly consider them a madman! When
Jesus says it, it is simply the truth!
- Incidentally, do you see the pattern of joy
that the Lord possessed? Pay close attention.
- He glorified the Father, finished His work
and did so with the expectation of a return to glory!
- Are you seeking to bring honor to the Lord
above anything else? Are you seeking to finish what He has had you work in? Are
you living with the expectation of reward for loving service to HIm?
- If you have ever wondered where joy came
from, it is right here! Joy in life. Joy in circumstances. Joy to endure! If
there was a secret to the Christian life, this was it!
- Don't you think that Jesus faced the cross,
looking past it, knowing what was His? This will be the source of our strength
as well. Jesus has prayed for Himself.
- He is preparing for glory and honor. In verse
6, Jesus turns His attention in prayer to the disciples that will have
to prepare for tribulation. Verse 6.
• John 17:6 : "I have manifested
Your name to the men whom You
have given Me out of the world. They were
Yours, You gave them to Me, and they have kept Your word." : Jesus has "manifested,"
"revealed," the Name of God. He has exposed to these men the realites
related to the reputation of God. He did this for the men that God gave Him.
- They belonged to the Father and were given to
the Son. Chosen by the Father, redeemed by the Son and sealed by the Holy
Spirit! What revealed them to be God's men?
- They had kept His Word! They had
"carefully attended to" God's command for them. Would the Lord say
that of you? Have you kept His word? Jesus commends these men for that reason!
- Think of these men. We have noted their
inconsistencies, poked a little fun at their failures and wondered what the
Lord saw in them to begin with.
- The Lord's verdict is that these men had
preserved God's Word! Maybe He doesn't know, but In a few minutes, each of them
is going to run for their life!
- The leading disciple, Peter is going to deny,
with cursing, ever having known Jesus.
- Thomas, a few days after the fact, will virtually
deny the resurrection! Jesus declares this now, knowing their past and knowing
their future. He sees them in a way that is unique to God.
- It reminds me of when Baalam was attempting
to curse Israel for Balak the King of Moab. Within his second prophecy, Baalam
proclaimed this from the Lord:
• Numbers 23:20,21 : "Behold, I have received a command
to bless; He has
blessed, and I cannot reverse it. He has not
observed iniquity in Jacob, Nor has He seen wickedness
in Israel. The Lord his God is with him, and
the shout of a King is among them." : This is the same nation that complained against God and Moses!
God hadn't seen any wickedness in them!?
- God knows what we are, but sees us as we will
be in Him and we are grateful that He chooses not to relate to us in our sin or
remember our failings! Verse 7.
• John 17:7,8 : "Now they have known that all
things which You have given Me are from You. For I have given to them the words which You have given Me; and they have received them, and have known surely that I came forth from You; and they have
believed that You sent Me." : Jesus attests to the fact that the
disciples were now endowed with knowledge that coupled with experience.
- They had come to know with
intimate knowledge that everything Jesus had accomplished on earth, had been done
as a result of His connection to the Father.
- His works, which the religious
leaders once attributed to Satan, were recognized by these simple men as divine
works. Why had they believed these works?
- Interesting, they believed the
works because they had first believed His words! The words that He delivered to
them were from the Father for them.
- The NLT might be a little too casual
here when it translates verse 8 "for I have passed on to them
the message you gave me," but, that intimacy is part of what is
communicated here.
- The Father had a specific set of
words for them. They heard them from the Lord and they took them to heart. They
"received" them. They made them their own.
- They listened to the words of
their Master and decided their live's course by them!
- These two worked together to
assure them that Jesus came from the Father. They believed that the Father sent
Him.
- Of all the people in the world,
these 11 would be the ambassadors of belief in Christ, the transmission team of
that which He taught and did.
- They would stand amidst an
unbelieving generation of people and proclaim what they knew to be true, to the
very loss of their own lives! The
Lord is not blind to that reality. Verse 9.
• John 17:9,10 : "I pray for them. I do not pray for the world but for those whom You have given
Me, for they are Yours. And all
Mine are Yours, and Yours are
Mine, and I am glorified in them." : Jesus, the second person of the Trinity, prayed for the
disciples. He made His request for them.
- Unlike the world, they belonged
to Christ and to the Father. The Lord uses the perfect tense when He speaks
this. They have been given and they will ever remain in that condition!
- Belonging to God, these would
spend their lives bringing honor to Jesus. He would be glorified in them! What
an honor!
- You and I have the capacity to
raise the awareness of Christ's greatness through our lives! The world has the
ability to consider Christ, not through abstract means, but concrete actions!
- Our words and our works, done for
the sake of our love for God, prove to the world the reality and worth of God
and His Christ! Jesus will be glorified in them!
- That sounds wonderful, but it
will come at a high price and will present a very real danger to the disciples
that Jesus does not ignore. Verse 11.
• John 17:11,12 : "Now I am no longer in the
world, but these are in the world, and I come to You. Holy Father, keep through
Your name those whom You have given Me, that they may be one as We are. While I
was with them in the world, I kept them in Your
name. Those whom You gave Me I have kept; and none of them is lost except the son of perdition, that the Scripture might be fulfilled." : Jesus is departing, but these
disciples are in the world. It's difficult to consider the balance between the
confident Son of God and the bereaved Son of Man.
- In His deity, He trusts His
Father and knows the power that He holds over the affairs of mankind. In His
humanity, He looks at His disciples and feels for their position.
- He knows how difficult this world
had been on Him. He knows that they will hold up because God will hold them up,
but it will be a harrowing journey nonetheless.
- This is why Jesus comes to the
Father. "Holy Father, keep through Your name those whom you have given
me!" Guard and protect. Preserve and hold these men!
- Aren't you glad He did keep
them!? Despite nearly every one of these men dying a martyr's death, not a
single one recanted their position!
- They witnessed of Christ's
salvation throughout the known world and then they died!
- Jesus prayed for their protection
and their unity. Take away the protection of God. If the world didn't get them,
their own natural inclination to split from each other would have!
- When a Rabbi died, it wasn't
assumed that his followers would continue to walk their course together. Jesus
expects these men to remain together, at least for a season.
- We know that they will eventually
spread out throughout the Roman empire, but they would need to remain together
for Christianity's start-up in Jerusalem.
- He prays that they would be one, even
as the Father and the Son were. Jesus doesn't expect uniformity because He and
the Father were distinct from each other.
- When you think of a married
couple, you rarely think of one without the other. They are distinct, yet
unified.
- Jesus prayed for that spirit to
be present in them, as when He was with them. He kept them in His Father's
Name. He protected the ones that He could protect. Judas left that protection.
- He found something that he
thought was more valuable than the Son of God and he was lost because of it,
fulfilling scripture along his dreadful way!
- In the process, Jesus calls him
the "son of perdition" or utter ruin! Guess who shares that name with
him? The Anti-Christ! (II Thessalonians 2:3)
- There are some who will follow
that same path. They have all the words of God, the assurances of heaven, the
joy of knowing the Father, but will choose 30 pieces of silver!
- They will run to their own ruin.
May it not be said of any of us here!
Conclusion
- Let's pray!
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