John 17:1-5

Illustration: Cutting off the ends-Cooking a roast.

Are you a Christian?

Why?

Cooking a roast.

John 17:1 NASB95

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,

Jesus finished His Lessons for His Leaving for the disciples.

The disciples have heard the heart of Jesus the past few chapters.

We can summarize it briefly by pointing out the main themes.

Serve Each Other.

Don’t Be Troubled.

Keep My Commandments.

The Spirit is Coming.

Abide in Me.

I am Returning to the Father.

You Will Have Trouble.

Christ has Overcome.

In each of these, Jesus has given instructions to the disciples on living in a fallen world as Christians.

Now, we are privileged to hear one of the most precious portions of Scripture.

In your Bible, if your Bible has labels, you will probably find what the Bible translators have labeled this chapter as: The High Priestly Prayer.

This passage is unique in that we get to listen to the Son as He speaks to the Father right before His death.

Other passages tell us THAT Jesus goes and prays.

This passage tells us WHAT He prays.

This passage is special because we get to listen into a conversation in which the Son speaks to the Father, about His will and plan for Him, and His will and plan for us.

Its here where we get to listen to Jesus express the eternal plan to save sinners that read about in .

Jesus is going to speak to the Father about the plan. The redemption plan. The one from before the foundation of the world.

He lifts his eyes to Heaven.

Jesus lifts His eyes to heaven.

This happens only a few times in the New Testament.

Healing of Lazarus, Feeding of the 5000, Here, His death, and Ascension.

My opinion: I think this is meaningful because it shows us something of the relationship that Christ has with the Father. it also may be revealing of the relationship that we have with the Father now that we are in Christ.

Most often, we bow to pray. Nothing wrong with this. In fact the majority of Scripture speaks of this posture while praying, but it is worth noting that our posture in prayer could be permissibly different. Jesus here, lifts his eyes and speaks to the Father. We can do the same.

While this is true, it should also be noted that what matters more is the heart with which we pray rather than the posture mode of prayer.

Lets look at the heart of Jesus and what He says to the Father.

“Father”- Don’t forget John’s purpose.

John is writing this book so that we believe that Jesus is the Christ. He is the Son of God and that by believing we may have life in His name.

Jesus here prays directly to the Father.

This is a unique ability until after the resurrection.

Jesus opens the door way for us to go directly to the Father now through His blood.

“The hour has come”

He is not talking about a literal 60 minutes. He is speaking of the appointed time that had been set from eternity.

This is the hour that Adam, Eve, Seth, Abraham, Isaac, Jacob, Jospeh, Job, David, Isaiah, Jeremiah, and every other notable Old Testament person waited for.

This is the hour that has been set forth by god from before the foundation of the world.

The time is now for Jesus to change the course of history.

The time for the serpent to be crushed, for Eden to be reopened, for peace to be restored, for Abraham to become a Father of many nations, for the true giant to be slayed by Israel’s unlikely King, for every sacrifice and every priest to mean something, for Passover, for true Sabbath rest once again, for the prophecies to be fulfilled, for ALL who will call upon the name of the Lord to have a hope and a Savior to call upon.

The time is now for Jesus to die, to resurrect and to ascend.

This is the time for which Jesus came.

The the time for His glorification is simultaneously the time where he will be crucified.

What is interesting here is that his glorification will come from his humiliation.

Glorify the Son, that the Son may glorify you.

Jesus here petitions the Father to glorify Him through the awful ordeal he is about to face.

And in turn, the Father will be glorified as well.

The reason for the Father Glorifying the Son though the crucifixion is that the Son would in turn glorify the Father.

We see a pattern here in verse 1-2 that reveals the plan and purpose of the Father.

The PLAN-The Son must be glorified

The PURPOSE-the Father will receive glory.

The wonderful truth here is that Christ receives glory through our redemption. This is good news for us!

verse 2

He goes further. Look in verse 2

John 17:2 NASB95

even as You gave Him authority over all flesh, that to all whom You have given Him, He may give eternal life.

Here we see the pattern again.

The Plan- Give the Son authority over all.

Christ has authority over all flesh. One day, all people will have to answer to Christ.

They will have to answer for every one of their shortcomings. Every time where they failed to bring God glory, every second they waisted on their own kingdom will be dealt with by the True King of every thing.

Christ has been given authority over all flesh, so that all whom the Father has given Him, He may give eternal life.

It is Christ’s job, purpose, and intent to do exactly as the Father has planned.

It is an arranged marriage hatched in the mind and holy purpose of the Father, Christ and His bride, arranged in eternity past, and will Christ will perfectly fulfill that purpose.

All those whom the Father has given the Son, This verse tells us that Christ has been given the authority to give them eternal life. This is amazing, really.

We have seen this before in

John 6:37–40 NASB95

“All that the Father gives Me will come to Me, and the one who comes to Me I will certainly not cast out. “For I have come down from heaven, not to do My own will, but the will of Him who sent Me. “This is the will of Him who sent Me, that of all that He has given Me I lose nothing, but raise it up on the last day. “For this is the will of My Father, that everyone who beholds the Son and believes in Him will have eternal life, and I Myself will raise him up on the last day.”

The Plan- The Father has given the Son all authority.

The purpose- To give all those who will believe in Him will have eternal life.

The Father has not given this authority to just anyone. The authority has been granted to His Son. Jesus is the one who grants eternal life.

This is why we call to him out of our death.

This is why we forsake our methods of trying to earn our salvation for the biblical doctrine of salvation by Christ alone.

We forsake the false teaching that you come to Christ when you are ready for the biblical understanding of calling upon the name of the Lord.

We forsake the false gospel of salvation by death, for the biblical understanding that salvation comes to the individual in this life

Our salvation and our security rests in the plan of the Father and the authority of Son.

The Father plans, the Son accomplishes, and He does not fail.

He is 100% successful in giving eternal life to all those that the Father has given Him.

He loses none. He gives them eternal life.

This comes through Christ. You aren’t granted eternal life in heaven because you die. Many people think they are going to heaven, because they died and they lived in South Carolina.

If you have no desire for Christ here, why would you ever want to live in a place where Christ is all in all?

And what exactly is eternal life?

What if I were to ask you that today?

What would you say? What is heaven?

Sure it is fun to think about what eternal life will look like. It is amazing to consider what eternal life is.

This is why there are hundreds songs about heaven and eternal life.

Much of our thinking about eternal life is shaped by songs that we’ve heard growing up.

But have we defined heaven and eternal life properly? Have we defined eternal life biblically? When you think of Heaven, what do you think of? Maybe even a better question: When you think of Heaven, what are you most excited about?

Perhaps a proper evaluative question here would be this one: When you think of Heaven, what do you think of? Maybe even a better question: When you think of Heaven, what are you most excited about?

I don’t know that there is a better person to tell us about eternal life than the one who is giving it.

Listen to what Jesus says in verse 3.

John 17:3 NASB95

“This is eternal life, that they may know You, the only true God, and Jesus Christ whom You have sent.

Heaven, Eternal life, according to Jesus is knowing the Father and knowing Him.

The point and purpose of Christ was to give knowledge of the Father and Himself.

This only comes through Christ. We don’t get heaven. We do not get eternal life apart from Christ.

JC Ryle said this:

“How little fit for heaven are many who talk of going to heaven, when they die, while they manifestly have no saving faith and no real acquaintance with Christ. You give Christ no honor here. You have no communion with Him. You do not love Him. Alas, what could you do in heaven? It would be no place for you. Its joys would be no joys for you. Its happiness would be a happiness into which you could not enter. Its employments would be a weariness and a burden to your heart. Oh, repent and change before it be too late!”

This is one of the reasons we call this the High Priestly Prayer.

In the OT, the regular person could not come in to the place where God was. Only the High Priest could do that, one time a year and he went in for one purpose. He came to offer up prayer, sacrifice, and intercession for the people under the covenant of Israel.

The goal of eternal life is to bring us close again.

Jesus, as our Great High Priest comes to give us knowledge of the God that, for so long, had been impossible to come close to because of Sin.

The goal of eternal life is to bring us close again, by taking care of that which separated us from God.

The joy of heaven then is an opening of knowledge of the One that we were created to know and live intimately with.

The joy of heaven isn’t streets of Gold!

The joy of heaven isn’t a mansion.

The joy of heaven isn’t even a reunion with friends and loved ones who were believers. Millions will be reunited in Hell, but that does not mean that it will be a joyful reunion.

Many people want to go to Heaven, because its a better place.

The joy of Heaven isn’t any of that! The joy of Heaven isn’t anything we could have had on earth.

The joy of Heaven is the true knowledge of God we get through Christ.

Do you want heaven for that?

“The critical question for our generation—and for every generation—is this:

If you could have heaven, with no sickness, and with all the friends you ever had on earth, and all the food you ever liked, and all the leisure activities you ever enjoyed, and all the natural beauties you ever saw, all the physical pleasures you ever tasted, and no human conflict or any natural disasters, could you be satisfied with heaven, if Christ were not there?” John Piper

The purpose of Christ and the point of heaven is that we know God.

The beautiful part of this passage is that Christ succeeds perfectly in what He sets out to do.

Look at what he says in verse 4

John 17:4 NASB95

“I glorified You on the earth, having accomplished the work which You have given Me to do.

Jesus confidently looks with anticipation of His ability to complete the work.

Though His death was in the future at this point, it is a certainty.

Remember, Jesus in His deity doesn’t operate limited by time and space.

He knows he will be successful in completing His mission.

He has lived perfectly. He will endure through an unjust trial. He will take on the cross, and He will resurrect.

He can guarantee his success so much so that he even speaks before its done as if its done.

I have completed it and I’m going to complete it. And this will end with a restoration back to the glory that he possessed with the Father in eternity past.

John 17:5 NASB95

“Now, Father, glorify Me together with Yourself, with the glory which I had with You before the world was.

Now, that Christ has and will complete his work, its time for Him to take back the glory that he set aside in His incarnation.

TH

And He gets this back, because He has done what the Father has sent Him to do.

He has saved the people that the Father has given Him. He will give them eternal life.

He will complete His mission.

Are you trusting in Him?

He has proven Himself to be trustworthy to the Father. Will you trust Him?

Do you have a proper understanding of Heaven? Of Eternal Life?

he has been given authority over all.

Have you submitted to Him?

Why are you a Christian? Do you know the answer.

If you are, it is because Christ, sent from the Father has accomplished your salvation.