This Is What You’re Made For

Many years ago, back when I was 8 or 9, my parents took me to Disney World.

This was during the ‘70s. Admission to the park cost about $6 for an adult, and most of the rides required you to purchase an extra ticket. The ride tickets cost 10 cents to a dollar, depending on the ride.

The most expensive ride tickets were the E-tickets, which were for some of the most popular rides, like Space Mountain and the Haunted Mansion.

My, how things have changed. In case you’re planning a visit, you should know that admission tickets for the Disney parks now cost $120 a day, before discounts.

One good change is that the price now includes all the rides — or, at least, all the rides you can fit in between waiting in lines.

What I remember most about that trip was the last day we were there.

We had a few of the expensive, $1 E tickets left over, so Mom and Dad suggested I go back to the park for a couple of hours while they packed and got us ready to leave the Disney hotel we’d been staying in.

Yes, they sent me to the park on my own. Yes, things have changed.

I had just a few hours before we’d leave Disney for good, so I needed to make the best of it.

Shoving those E tickets into my pocket, where I couldn’t lose them, I headed to the park and made a beeline straight for Space Mountain, which might still be the best roller coaster even made.

But when I got there, the ride was closed, and nobody could tell me when it might open again.

So, with those E tickets burning a hole in my pocket and worthless to us once we’d left Florida, I made my way to the Haunted House.

I rode that ride four times in a row. I’d finish the ride, get off, run around to the back of the line, wait a few minutes, and go again. I remember it feeling as if the whole thing was there just for me.

Pretty soon, we’d be back in Virginia, and I’d be back in school, and life would be pretty much the same as it ever was.

I wanted to wring every bit of adventure and excitement that I could, while I still had the opportunity to do so.

And that’s how we often go through life — as if the point of it all is to wring every bit of adventure, every bit of fun, every bit of excitement that we can get out of it, while there’s still time to do so.

We often tend to live as if the best things are all right here on earth; as if our best lives are the ones we live here and now, doing the things that all the rest of the world does to try to bring meaning to it all.

Just as I did with that pocketful of E tickets, we try to fill our lives with entertainment, adventure, relationships, work, vacations and all sorts of other things that we want to do while there’s still time.

And there’s nothing inherently wrong with those things. Indeed, I think we were made to NEED those things from time to time.

But what we’re going to see today is that we were made for so much more than those things.

Today, as we begin a five-week series on Jesus’ High Priestly Prayer at the Last Supper on the night before His crucifixion, we’re going to talk about why God made us.

And we’re going to talk about how to truly make the best of whatever time each of us has here. How to find TRUE meaning in our time here on earth.

Now, the passage we’ll be studying during this series is John, chapter 17, which is the Apostle’s Holy Spirit-inspired account of Jesus’ prayer for His disciples at the conclusion of the Last Supper.

This is the last time in the gospel accounts in which Jesus is described as praying for His disciples.

And that’s significant, considering that He knew what would take place in less than 24 hours. Considering that He knew He was headed for the cross. Considering that He knew He was about to be betrayed and abandoned by those He loved.

When we stop and think about how WE might spend the last 24 hours of our lives if we knew the end was coming, it’s comforting to know that Jesus spent the final hours before His arrest and crucifixion serving His disciples and praying for them — and for us.

We’re going to look at the first three verses of His prayer this morning, but I’d like to read the whole thing today as we begin this series.

We might expect the situation Jesus faced to make Him sorrowful, maybe even despondent. But what I want you to hear as I read this passage is the joy and the hope that are at the root of this prayer.

Jesus had said in the previous chapter that He’d already overcome the world.

And here, He prays with the confidence, the joy, and the hope of one who knows He has won the war, even if the battles that remain will come at great cost.

Listen to the words of His prayer:

John 17:1–26 NASB95

1 Jesus spoke these things; and lifting up His eyes to heaven, He said, “Father, the hour has come; glorify Your Son, that the Son may glorify You, 2 even as You gave Him authority over all flesh, that to all whom You have given Him, He may give eternal life. 3 “This is eternal life, that they may know You, the only true God, and Jesus Christ whom You have sent. 4 “I glorified You on the earth, having accomplished the work which You have given Me to do. 5 “Now, Father, glorify Me together with Yourself, with the glory which I had with You before the world was. 6 “I have manifested Your name to the men whom You gave Me out of the world; they were Yours and You gave them to Me, and they have kept Your word. 7 “Now they have come to know that everything You have given Me is from You; 8 for the words which You gave Me I have given to them; and they received them and truly understood that I came forth from You, and they believed that You sent Me. 9 “I ask on their behalf; I do not ask on behalf of the world, but of those whom You have given Me; for they are Yours; 10 and all things that are Mine are Yours, and Yours are Mine; and I have been glorified in them. 11 “I am no longer in the world; and yet they themselves are in the world, and I come to You. Holy Father, keep them in Your name, the name which You have given Me, that they may be one even as We are. 12 “While I was with them, I was keeping them in Your name which You have given Me; and I guarded them and not one of them perished but the son of perdition, so that the Scripture would be fulfilled. 13 “But now I come to You; and these things I speak in the world so that they may have My joy made full in themselves. 14 “I have given them Your word; and the world has hated them, because they are not of the world, even as I am not of the world. 15 “I do not ask You to take them out of the world, but to keep them from the evil one. 16 “They are not of the world, even as I am not of the world. 17 “Sanctify them in the truth; Your word is truth. 18 “As You sent Me into the world, I also have sent them into the world. 19 “For their sakes I sanctify Myself, that they themselves also may be sanctified in truth. 20 “I do not ask on behalf of these alone, but for those also who believe in Me through their word; 21 that they may all be one; even 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 sent Me. 22 “The glory which You have given Me I have given to them, that they may be one, just as We are one; 23 I in them and You in Me, that they may be perfected in unity, so that the world may know that You sent Me, and loved them, even as You have loved Me. 24 “Father, I desire that they also, whom You have given Me, be with Me where I am, so that they may see My glory which You have given Me, for You loved Me before the foundation of the world. 25 “O righteous Father, although the world has not known You, yet I have known You; and these have known that You sent Me; 26 and I have made Your name known to them, and will make it known, so that the love with which You loved Me may be in them, and I in them.”

Warren Wiersbe calls this prayer “the greatest prayer recorded anywhere in Scripture.” This chapter, he said, “is certainly the ‘holy of holies’ of the Gospel record.”

Here, we’re allowed to see the love and unity between our Heavenly Father and His unique and eternal Son.

Here, we get a glimpse into the mind and the priorities of this King of kings and Lord of lords who came and lived among us as a servant, who died among common thieves, who gave His life that sinners could be saved.

Jesus had washed His disciples’ feet and taught them about the “new” commandment to love one another as He had loved them.

He’d talked to them about the Holy Spirit, whom He promised would come to comfort them and guide them after He was gone.

There were hard lessons in what He taught that night. He knew they were confused and maybe even a bit frightened by what He was telling them.

And He knew that when He was gone — after He’d died on the cross and been raised from the dead on the third day and then ascended back to heaven a few weeks later — they’d have even more difficulties than they now could imagine.

So, here we see Jesus being the humble, self-giving person He’s always been. We see Him praying, not for Himself, but for God’s glory, for the disciple’s welfare, and for we who’d turn to Him in faith through their witness.

And it all starts with God’s glory. That’s the foundation upon which the rest of this prayer is built.

Jesus lifts up His eyes to heaven, John writes in verse 1. This prayer posture suggests His submission to God and His confidence in God.

Because He was submitted to God’s will, and because He was full of the Holy Spirit and walking BY the Spirit, Jesus could pray with confidence.

He shared God’s priorities, so He could pray according to those priorities and be confident that His Father would hear and answer His prayer.

“Father, the hour has come,” He says. Throughout His ministry, Jesus had frequently told people that his time had not yet come. But on this night, just a few short hours before His unjust arrest and sham trial, His time HAD come.

The cross is what He came for.

And I want you to notice that Jesus didn’t allow the inevitability of the cross keep Him from going to God in prayer.

He didn’t let the fact that God wasn’t sovereignly stopping the progression toward the cross to cause Him to be discouraged.

BECAUSE God is sovereign, we should go to Him in prayer.

Jesus didn’t see the inevitability of the cross and say, “Well, there’s no need to pray about it. It’s going to happen, no matter what.” Instead, he said, “The cross is inevitable, so let me pray that the Father be glorified in it.”

Actually, what He asks first is that HE be glorified.

Now, this word, “glorified,” means to clothe with splendor; to do honor to; to adorn with luster; to make something excellent or renowned; to cause the dignity and worth of some person or thing to become manifest and acknowledged.

What Jesus is asking is that His death, burial, and resurrection would bring Him glory. And that, frankly, sounds nearly as odd to our ears as it would’ve to people in the first century A.D.

The world of that time and place would’ve seen the cross as the ultimate defeat, shameful in the extreme.

Indeed, throughout history, many have been unwilling to turn to Jesus in faith because they couldn’t accept the idea that God would allow Himself to be killed, especially in such humiliating circumstances.

But God specializes in using the foolish things of this world to shame the wise and the weak things of this world to shame the strong.

Jesus talked about this a number of times, but perhaps no more directly than when He said, “Everyone who exalts himself will be humbled, and he who humbles himself will be exalted.”

That’s just what happened with Him. He humbled Himself to the point of death on a cross.

But God raised Him from the dead into a glorified body and then brought Him back to heaven, where He’s now exalted, sitting at the right hand of God.

He HAS been glorified. But why?

Clearly, He deserves all honor and glory for His great love for us and for His gracious sacrifice for us and in our place.

But here, He tells us that even the glory He’d receive as a result of His humble sacrifice would ultimately be for GOD’S glory, not for His own.

In the economy of the Trinity, all three persons of the godhead are equal, and all three are God. But the Holy Spirit always points us to the Son, and Jesus, the Son, always gives glory to the Father.

Jesus is looking for glory, not for Himself, but for His Father.

And that’s a good lesson for us, as well. Whatever glory we receive here on earth, our desire should be to give THAT glory to Jesus.

HE is he vine, and we are the branches. And as He’d told His disciples earlier this evening, without Him, we can do nothing.

Whatever fruit we bear as followers of Jesus comes from our abiding in Him, from our relationship to Him as the True Vine, and from the work of His Holy Spirit within us.

So, there’s no sense in trying to hold onto our own glory — to pretend that whatever we accomplish is a result of our own goodness or our own wisdom or intelligence.

Anything good we accomplish in life as followers of Jesus is a direct result of abiding in Him.

And, conversely, the lack of fruit in a believer’s life is evidence of failing to abide in Christ Jesus, failing to walk by the Spirit, failing to remain on the narrow way of abundant life in Christ.

So. whatever glory Jesus received as a result of His death, burial, and resurrection, He would give back to His Father, much as, He says in verse 2, the Father has given Him authority over all flesh.

Now, authority is a state of control over something; the right to act, decide, or dispose of one’s property as he wishes.

Five times in this prayer, Jesus refers to believers as those whom the Father has given Him. We belong to Him.

The second Psalm describes this gift as the inheritance God’s Son earns as a result of His obedience in His life, His death, and His resurrection.

Psalm 2:7–8 NASB95

7 “I will surely tell of the decree of the Lord: He said to Me, ‘You are My Son, Today I have begotten You. 8 ‘Ask of Me, and I will surely give the nations as Your inheritance, And the very ends of the earth as Your possession.

Today, I have declared you My unique and special Son. That’s the sense of the line that reads, “Today, I have begotten You.”

And in Romans 1:4, the Apostle Paul clarifies that this declaration was concurrent with Jesus’ resurrection from the dead.

Because of Jesus’ obedience — and because of God’s great love for His Son — the Father has pledged the nations as Jesus’ inheritance and the whole earth as His possession.

But once again, we have to recognize that Jesus isn’t accepting this inheritance as His own. Paul makes this clear in 1 Corinthians, chapter 15, where he writes the following:

1 Corinthians 15:27–28 NASB95

27 For He has put all things in subjection under His feet. But when He says, “All things are put in subjection,” it is evident that He is excepted who put all things in subjection to Him. 28 When all things are subjected to Him, then the Son Himself also will be subjected to the One who subjected all things to Him, so that God may be all in all.

Once again, we see that Jesus defers His own glory to God. All things will be subjected to Jesus, but He voluntarily subjects HIMSELF to the Father, as He has done forever.

And in subjecting Himself to His Father, He affirms that God is head over everything and everyone.

This passage looks ahead — past the Great Tribulation, past the Millennial Reign of Jesus, past the final battle with Satan, past the terrible judgment of the lost at the Great White Throne — and into the eternal kingdom of God.

And the picture Paul paints here is of an eternal future in which believers no longer need a mediator between themselves and God.

There’ll be no more need for priests and prophets, because we’ll have direct access to God. There’s be no more need for pastors, because we’ll have Jesus as our pastor, our Good Shepherd.

And we’ll spend our days glorifying Father, Son, and Holy Spirit, because we’ve received eternal life as those who’ve been given to Jesus by God.

But what exactly does Jesus mean by “eternal life” in verses 2 and 3?

The first thing to understand about this term, “eternal life” is that the “eternal” part isn’t what’s significant.

That’s because everybody is eternal. Every one of us has a soul that will continue to exist forever. And every one of us will experience the resurrection of our bodies at some point.

We were made as “enfleshed souls,” and that’s how we’ll spend eternity, as souls occupying our bodies.

So, what’s significant about eternal life isn’t the fact that our souls and bodies will go on forever, or even that we’ll be raised from the dead.

What’s significant about eternal life is the QUALITY of that life. It’s an eternity of knowing God and knowing Jesus.

The word “know” here is ginosko in the Greek, and it has the sense of knowing something through experience, of GETTING to know something.

So, eternal life is a continual experience of coming to know God better, of coming to know Jesus better.

This experience is in contrast to the eternal death of those who’ve rejected Jesus, those who’ve refused to place their faith in Him.

They, too, will be raised from the dead, and their souls will join their renewed bodies.

But their experience will be one of eternal death — one of constant and unceasing separation from God and from His grace and mercy — one of eternal suffering in the fires of Hell, where sin will go unchecked by God’s common grace.

Those who’ve rejected Jesus will have the eternal experience they sought while here on earth: They'll forever be in a place where God is not, where Jesus is not, where the Holy Spirit is not.

That’s terrifying to me. Even in the brokenness of this world, we can see God at work. Even in the selfishness of this world, we see the love of Jesus. Even amidst the self-reliance of this world, we can see the Holy Spirit drawing people to Jesus.

But in hell, there’ll be none of that. Loneliness, despair, and emptiness will be all there is.

So, what you need to see here is that we were MADE for eternal life. We were MADE to know God and to continue knowing Him better and better throughout eternity. We were MADE to be in fellowship with Father, Son, and Holy Spirit.

But our sins broke that fellowship, and there was nothing we could do to restore it. So, God sent Jesus to do what we could not: to reconcile lost sinners to the God who’d made them to know Him.

In other words, to offer us eternal life through faith in Him and His finished work at the cross.

But many believers live as if this is an experience entirely of the future. And, frankly, many times, we live as if this experience of truly knowing God is secondary to all that we hope to experience here on earth.

But if you’ve placed your faith in Jesus, you already HAVE eternal life. Your eternal life has already BEGUN.

Your body will die, assuming Jesus doesn’t return first, but this incredible quality of knowing God and being in fellowship with Him is available to you right here and right now, not just in the resurrection.

It’s what you were made for. It’s what you were saved for. And it’s how we as followers of Jesus bring Him glory.

How might your life be different if you chose to live every day as excited and eager about getting to know God as you might be for your next vacation?

How might our lives be different if we prioritized glorifying God above all the things we do to bring ourselves glory?

How much happier would we be if we spent our days with our eyes metaphorically lifted up to heaven and God’s glory, rather than having them focused on the broken things of this world?

How would your perspective change if you understood that even the best things this life has to offer pale in comparison to the future AND the present realities of eternal life?

This week, I want you to think about how the present reality of eternal life affects how you live in the here and now.

Are you scurrying around like 9-year-old me at Disney World, trying to fit all the worldly things you can into the time you have left here on earth, content to let your experience of eternal life be confined to your time on the other side of the grave?

Or are you enjoying what you can of this earthly experience, while pursuing eternal life — the growing knowledge of God — with the zeal of someone who’s finally doing what he was made to do?

This IS what you were made for. If you’re a follower of Jesus, this is what you were SAVED for.

And you’ll never find the kind of fulfillment and peace you’re looking for until you commit yourself to being what you were made to be.