The High Priestly Prayer

Main Idea: The Path to Life and glorification is through knowing Jesus the mediator

How do I see Jesus: Through the glorification of Jesus in his work on the cross, we see and experience the fulfillment of God’s plan

ME: There were moments in my life when I first decided to follow Jesus in his call for me into ministry and he was doing work on m to draw me closer to him, that I was sure of how I would handle the rest of my life as a pastor. I remember for a long time in church there would be times in worship when I just felt like it was a must for me to take off my shoes while I was worshipping him. It was like Exodus 3:5 was coming to life in my life and I would worship and feel like I couldn’t do it iwth my shoes on because we were standing on Holy Ground as a place of worship, and I remember telling Jennifer I was going to have to preach with my shoes off and I explained why. And its not that I don’t think the place where we worship or preach the gospel is holy anymore, but I think some of that work he was doing on me during those times he has done on me and that moment has passed in most instances. I also have been a pastor for a while now and have heard way too many stories of the complaints of members with other people who have felt compelled to do the same thing in reverence to God. But as we start chapter 17 this morning we are entering some deep scripture, and I feel like this is almost a we need to take our shoes off to approach the text kind of moment. This is obviously just figuratively speaking as my shoes are on… but this is some deep stuff. The scottish minister, John Brown once said, “The seventeenth chapter of the Gospel by John, is, without doubt, the most remarkable portion of the most remarkable book in the world.”

In fact, it is such a deep chapter Thomas Morton the puritan pastor preached 26 sermons on this one chapter of scripture, one sermon for every single verse in the chapter. So the place where we are entering is indeed Holy Ground.

EXPOSITION

There are many who refer to this chapter as I have, the High Priestly prayer, and we are going to see Jesus praying to the Father, in time he was alone with him, a glimpse of his relationship with Him in a manner we would not have been privy to unless it were for the Holy Spirit. Some even look at this chapter and call it the Real Lord’s Prayer because this is the longest recorded prayer of Jesus in the scripture and in it there is so much truth Jesus lays out in such a plain manner.

And through this prayer this morning we are going to learn the path to eternal life and glorification is through knowing Jesus who enables us to have a relationship with the Father.

Lets look at the first verse this morning

John 17:1 ESV

1 When Jesus had spoken these words, he lifted up his eyes to heaven, and said, “Father, the hour has come; glorify your Son that the Son may glorify you,

We have to be quick here at the beginning of this prayer to not think Jesus is praying in a sad or depressed manner here, some tend to think Jesus had been overcome and burdened by what was to come and had put himself in a place of despair and that is the manner in which we find him praying here, but we have to remember that in ch 16 vs 33 Jesus has just declared he has overcome the world. He was speaking of his victory and it would make no sense for him to immediately switch to a defeated mentality instead he is praying about what is to come and the peace we should have.

We see Jesus here again speaking about his hour… and over and over again in the Gospel of John we can see John talking about his hour, or his time… first we saw Jesus talk about this with his mother at the wedding of cana in chapter 2, and again in chapter 7 as they asked Jesus to reveal himself and show his power for who he really was. and over and over again Jesus would say my hour has not yet come. But now, in chapter 17 we see him praying to the father and that language is shifting, he is immediately saying his hour has come, the wait is over. As you follow the story everything Jesus did has led to this moment in time. The plan he made before time to come and offer himself for all of humanity is finally here.

And now that it has arrived he isn’t running away, he isn’t saying you know what I don’t want to deal with this I think I will just do my own thing. Instead, knowing the time has come, knowing the hard is before him we see him praying to God in his time. When the time for Glory is at hand he seeks God even more than before wanting God to glorify HIM so he could Glorify the father.

This is so different than what most of us do, for most of us when we are seeking our own glory we put God behind us and leave him out of the thing entirely. We just want to do whatever it takes to make ourselves look better. I will never forget back when Lance Armstrong was still a respected athlete and wasn’t known for his doping problem and after his treatment for testicular cancer and his later being pronounced cure of the disease I remember a reporter asking him if he wanted to thank God for curing him or helping him, and he asked why he would do that, the only people he needed to thank was God and himself.

And at the moment when God had done something in his life and he could have chosen to use the glory in his life to glorify God he backed away.

And that is completely different than what we saw this year in the Olympics as Syndney McLaughlin-Levrone won her medals and all eyes were on her as she sat at podium as one of the most decorated women in the history of hurdles she had every opportunity to point to herself just like Lance Armstrong, but instead, she took the moment to point to Jesus in those moments and show how amazing he was to allow her to win so she could have a platform to be able to speak for Jesus.

And it shouldn’t surprise us that Jesus ask to be glorified so he could glorify the father. From his birth when angels came to him and sang of God’s glory in his birth his entire life has been pointing to glorifying God. And here what we are going to see is not even is Jesus life pointing to God’s glory, but even in his death it will point to Gods glory. And the amazing thing is His Hour is both the hour of his deepest anguish and his greatest glory all wrapped into one.

John 17:2–3 ESV

2 since you have given him authority over all flesh, to give eternal life to all whom you have given him. 3 And this is eternal life, that they know you, the only true God, and Jesus Christ whom you have sent.

Jesus now turns from asking God to glorify him to talking about the work of his glory in the world. What is the purpose of Jesus bringing glory to the Father? Its all about eternal life. And in these verses we see Jesus talking about giving in three different ways.

1. The Father gave Jesus authority over all of Mankind.

2. The son uses this authority to give eternal life.

3. The son gives eternal life to those that are his, not all.

And this is a smack in the face to those who believe we all end up in the same place and there is no hell and we all end up with God for eternity in Heaven. It illuminates the fact that not everyone will have eternal life, but only the select group and when you follow it with the rest of scripture we can see clearly it is only those who find Jesus as Lord who will receive this eternal life from Him.

And for some that may bring the question, what exactly is eternal life… I remember as a child hearing other kids talking about eternal life and thinking of how bored they would be if they lived forever, and this is truly the way a child that doesnt know Jesus thinks, we can;t see Jesus for how good he is so we think of a normal life lived wforever without the true presence of JEsus and we can’t wrap our minds around it.

And we may not think any differently of this, it may be we just think of life eternal after we die as an extension of a normal life lived forever, but Jesus gives a definition here different than most of us understand at first. Here, Jesus speaks of eternal life as not just the life to come but our lives here as we come to know him. And what we see is that eternal life beginning here and now and lasting forever depends on who we know.

And Jesus leaves no other option open to us here, it isn’t knowing some powerful person in this world that would lead to us having eternal life, it is only in knowing him.

And we can’t just know him in the way we want to know him, we can’t know him as half truths or a misrepresentation of himself who makes us feel better about how we think he should be and react. Instead, we must know him for who he really is, who he says he is, as the creator, as the sender and the salvation of his people.

And I think when we hear these words and think about knowing we can get ourselves in trouble because we can think about knowing on only an intellectual level. we think of a head knowledge with nothing else, and there are so many people who have a head knowledge of God but don’t truly know him. And we can see this at an extended level when we look at James 2:19

James 2:19 ESV

19 You believe that God is one; you do well. Even the demons believe—and shudder!

So just a head knowledge isn’t enough, it has to run so much deeper than that. Its not just knowing the truth and having a knowledge of it, its allowing those truths to guide and move your life, to be the compass upon which you set everything you do. When you know him on this level it is life changing, in the same way Adam knew eve it changed everything about him and the way he acted and behaved, and truly knowing Jesus will change us in the world in which we live. It will shape us and move us.

And this kind of knowing Jesus is not only the way to eternal lfie in teh future but it is eternal life in the here and now. Because when we truly know God and allow him to move us our lives WILL be better from knowing him .

Finally

John 17:4–5 ESV

4 I glorified you on earth, having accomplished the work that you gave me to do. 5 And now, Father, glorify me in your own presence with the glory that I had with you before the world existed.

And here the first section of the high priestly prayer comes to an end, and comes full circle. Here he reverses the order, he talks of the glory of the father, and ends with the request for himself to be glorified.

And I know there are some that will say how can this be when the cross hasn’t happened yet, and I think this is Jesus’ ultimate confidence in all that is about to happen there is no question in his mind that everything the father has called him to do is going to come to fruition. He wasn’t afraid that his death wouldn’t do what he needed it to do, he was very sure in the plan.

And becasue of his obedience, he now sits at the right hand of the father, and he is the mediator for you and for me and continuing to do work for us. IF we believe in Jesus we are never alone.

And as we dig deep the question is, are you allowing Jesus’ truth to actually move you.. is it transforming and shaping your life?

YOU

WE