Where we See the Heart of Jesus

Welcome

Welcome back everybody! Glad we could all make it. Today we are going to be jumping into the Jesus’ High Priestly Prayer, which is where we see the heart of Jesus revealed. We are going to meditate on this and ask some questions on what He says in this prayer, but before we jump into our lesson for today, lets kick it off with some small group discussion:

How has your New Year been?

What does it mean for God to love?

Before we jump into the High Priestly Prayer, lets look at some of the passages leading up to it to establish context.

John 15:12–15 ESV

12 “This is my commandment, that you love one another as I have loved you. 13 Greater love has no one than this, that someone lay down his life for his friends. 14 You are my friends if you do what I command you. 15 No longer do I call you servants, for the servant does not know what his master is doing; but I have called you friends, for all that I have heard from my Father I have made known to you.

There is a special love that Jesus has for believers. God, being infinitely more complex and complicated than we are yet so simple that all of His attributes and qualities flow together seamlessly. This is a big reason church history is so important, there are 2,000 years worth of people who have looked at these scriptures and meditated on them and help us interpret them in the right way. This is what is called orthodoxy. Or saying things that align with what the correct vein of church history has spoken on.

Chances are if you are hearing something brand new, something fresh off the presses in the realm of Christianity, chances are that its heresy and incredibly wrong. So many people have an opinion on scripture but so few have studied it. I want us to know Church history and continue on in the orthodox teachings of the church to shine more light and help us to understand the revealed word and will of God.

Theology is important, don’t let anyone tell you otherwise, and everybody is a theologian. Theology is the study of God, if you read your bible you are studying God, congratulations you’re all knighted theologians. However, the problem with the Christian church is, in the words of Voddie Baucham,

“The modern church is producing passionate people with empty heads who love the Jesus they don’t know very well.” – Voddie Baucham

This is a problem, because the church has so diminished the value of good doctrine and theology, people now don’t really know who Jesus is, and i want us to know who Jesus is. If I say something ever and you disagree with me that is fine, I am fallible and i get things wrong and mess up all the time just ask my wife, but if what i’m saying I am literally reading directly from scripture and you disagree what what scripture is saying then the problem certainly is not with what the Bible says but with you and your heart. We are students of the Word. We are molded by the text. We do not try to mold the text into what we want it to say. With That said, lets continue on,

John 15:16–17 ESV

16 You did not choose me, but I chose you and appointed you that you should go and bear fruit and that your fruit should abide, so that whatever you ask the Father in my name, he may give it to you. 17 These things I command you, so that you will love one another.

Jesus, talking to His disciples, says that you did not choose me, but I chose you, or in the words of John the apostle in first John, because God is love, and the only way that someone can love is by knowing God, we love, because He first loved us, and appointed us to go and bear good fruit, only possible through the regenerative work of the Holy Spirit, this new life that we have been miraculously given.

Jesus in in the midst of His goodbye tour, He knows what is before Him, He knows what He is going to do, He goes on with this mindest for 2 chapters and caps it off with this.

John 16:32–33 ESV

32 Behold, the hour is coming, indeed it has come, when you will be scattered, each to his own home, and will leave me alone. Yet I am not alone, for the Father is with me. 33 I have said these things to you, that in me you may have peace. In the world you will have tribulation. But take heart; I have overcome the world.”

In me you may have peace. If you are a believer, you will be persecuted. I am not saying you may, I am saying you will. You will be hated. You will be plotted against. Because you are not of this world but Chosen out of this world that we go and bear fruit through the power of the Holy Spirit. So take heart, have peace in Jesus, the one who has overcome the world.

With this morbid yet victorious final statement, Jesus begins His High Priestly prayer. We are in the endgame now.

John 17:1–5 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, 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. 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.

Jesus has authority over all flesh to give eternal life to all that the Father has given Him. Then he goes on to define what the eternal life is that He is giving, knowing God, and Jesus, Himself. If you know them, not just in a head knowledge, but an intimate, salvific affection, that is eternal life. Now, this is an important question to grapple with. looking at Jesus saying “I glorified you on earth, having accomplished all that you gave me to do.” Lets ask the question:

What was Jesus’ mission?

Lets continue reading, this is what was accomplished:

John 17:6–9 ESV

6 “I have manifested your name to the people whom you gave me out of the world. Yours they were, and you gave them to me, and they have kept your word. 7 Now they know that everything that you have given me is from you. 8 For I have given them the words that you gave me, and they have received them and have come to know in truth that I came from you; and they have believed that you sent me. 9 I am praying for them. I am not praying for the world but for those whom you have given me, for they are yours.

This is right before Jesus is arrested to be crucified. Jesus here is praying over the sacrifice He is about to make. Himself. Note this sacrifice is not for the World, but for all whom the Father has given Him. What is this? I’m not reading from some distant crazed theologian, these are the words of Jesus Himself. So Jesus is about to pay the price and atone for the sins of those that the Father has given Him. Who are these people? How do we know who they are?

Lets take a quick step away from John 17 to John 6, Jesus uses this language all throughout His Ministry.

John 6:37–40 ESV

37 All that the Father gives me will come to me, and whoever comes to me I will never cast out. 38 For I have come down from heaven, not to do my own will but the will of him who sent me. 39 And this is the will of him who sent me, that I should lose nothing of all that he has given me, but raise it up on the last day. 40 For this is the will of my Father, that everyone who looks on the Son and believes in him should have eternal life, and I will raise him up on the last day.”

So the Jews hear what Jesus is saying and get upset with Him, this happens frequently throughout the Gospels. In response to their grumbling, Jesus says this,

John 6:43–44 ESV

43 Jesus answered them, “Do not grumble among yourselves. 44 No one can come to me unless the Father who sent me draws him. And I will raise him up on the last day.

This is something that I do not want you to miss. Up until I had this laid out to me, the idea of the trinity’s role in salvation did not make much sense to me. The Father gives those to be saved to the son, The Son pays for the sins of those that the Father has given Him, this is what we have just read, this is what Jesus our Messiah is saying. And where is Holy Spirit? John 3 We know John 3, Nicodemus sneaks away from the other pharisees to tell Jesus He sees He is a teacher sent from God.

John 3:3 ESV

3 Jesus answered him, “Truly, truly, I say to you, unless one is born again he cannot see the kingdom of God.”

How is one born again? The Holy Spirit causes the regeneration, this new birth, which applies the sacrifice of the Son to all who come to Jesus, which are those that the Father has given Him. You might be thinking to yourself, wait a minute Peyton, I see we are in John 3, lots go ahead and jump to verse 16,, how does this stand up against the most popular verse in all of Scripture John 3:16? Very well.

John 3:16 ESV

16 “For God so loved the world, that he gave his only Son, that whoever believes in him should not perish but have eternal life.

This doesn’t say that everyone will be saved, it says that whoever believes in Him will be saved, which is exactly what Jesus has said in John 6 and 17 and throughout the entirety of His Gospels. And who believes? Those that the Father has Given Him. Now that we clarified that a bit, lets finish out John 17: l

John 17:10–12 ESV

10 All mine are yours, and yours are mine, and I am glorified in them. 11 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. 12 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.

Jesus is praying that the Father keep them in His mighty sovereign name, and Jesus has guarded them, and hasn’t lost one. Except, the son of Destruction, who is that? Judas. So that the scripture might be fulfill. God has decreed, He has so said that Judas would betray Jesus and it was so. Judas was lost. But He is the only one who was or ever will be lost once Jesus has them. Because it was not because Jesus did not have the ability to save Judas, but because the Word of God must stand true and the scriptures must be fulfilled.

John 17:13–19 ESV

13 But now I am coming to you, and these things I speak in the world, that they may have my joy fulfilled in themselves. 14 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. 15 I do not ask that you take them out of the world, but that you keep them from the evil one. 16 They are not of the world, just 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, so I have sent them into the world. 19 And for their sake I consecrate myself, that they also may be sanctified in truth.

Like Jesus said before and throughout His whole ministry, If you are saved, you are not like anyone else. You are not like the world. You actually resent everything the world stands for and call out its evils, and that is why it hates you and that is why it hates God. Now, some people like to interpret this High priestly prayer and all these other places in the gospels I have pulled from today and say that they are just talking about the immediate disciples, just the 12. It’s not talking about the salvation of everybody. That would be a compelling argument, if Jesus didn't say this.

John 17:20–24 ESV

20 “I do not ask for these only, but also for those who will believe in me through their word, 21 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. 22 The glory that you have given me I have given to them, that they may be one even as we are one, 23 I in them and you in me, that they may become perfectly one, so that the world may know that you sent me and loved them even as you loved me. 24 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 foundation of the world.

You loved them even as you loved me. How did the Father love the Son? Before the foundations of the world. If you are a believer or will become a believer, It is because God has loved you since the foundations of the earth had been laid.

God can never stop loving you because He never began. From eternity past He has loved you. There’s never been a time He hasn’t, even at your worst we cling to this hope. The Gospel, that while we were still sinners Christ died for us. Jesus finishes His prayer:

John 17:25–26 ESV

25 O righteous Father, even though the world does not know you, I know you, and these know that you have sent me. 26 I made known to them your name, and I will continue to make it known, that the love with which you have loved me may be in them, and I in them.”

Jesus has made known the sovereign holy name of the Father. and this is how Ends His prayer over you and every believer that ever be, in the same way He started, with Love.

From here, the Son of Destruction acts in accordance with the scriptures, betraying Jesus with kiss to His cheek.

Jesus is arrested, the apostles and believers scattered. Peter denying Jesus. Jesus goes to trial. Then is beaten, spat upon, humiliated, tortured. Carried the cross, the instrument in which the Son of God would be nailed to and put up on display for all to see. They put a crown of thorns on Him in mockery. In enduring all of this. He still sees those that the Father has given Him in the crowd and cries out, Father forgive them, they know not what they do. Jesus is crushed under the mighty wrath of God. This crucifixion wasn’t just in a couple of minutes, this happened over hours. After all of this, our savior is thirsty.

John 19:28–30 ESV

28 After this, Jesus, knowing that all was now finished, said (to fulfill the Scripture), “I thirst.” 29 A jar full of sour wine stood there, so they put a sponge full of the sour wine on a hyssop branch and held it to his mouth. 30 When Jesus had received the sour wine, he said, “It is finished,” and he bowed his head and gave up his spirit.

Jesus endured all of this. Willingly. For sinners. Not even good people. But despicable and heinous sinners like myself. So i have a question for us to think on today. And think hard about it.

What did Jesus mean when He said “It is finished?”

This is important to understand. When Jesus said that it is finished, He was saying that the salvation of His people has been accomplished. He is the good shepherd who lays down His life for His sheep. So for whom did Jesus die? Did He go to the cross with nobody in mind? Was it a potential sacrifice for nobody? Or was it a powerful and effective sacrifice for somebody? Does Jesus sacrifice actually have the power to save by itself? Or is it dependent upon the wise and pious people to reach out and except it? No, salvation is completely dependent upon the God of the Universe. Which is why we focus on Jesus, the author, initiator, beginner, and perfecter of our faith.

So why preach a message like this Peyton? What can we do with this knowledge?

Well for one, my job is to apologetically preach the whole counsel of God as He has revealed to us in scripture. That’s for starters. Secondly, this applies to every aspect of your life. Knowing that your salvation truly is a gift from God, this effects your prayer life, your evangelism, and your world view.

Prayer Life

It effects your prayer life in that your thankfulness and adoring God should be amplified through this. You should thank God for everything, especially your salvation, and praise Him as the sovereign God that He is, the one who is in heaven and does as He pleases.

Evangelism

It effects your evangelism in that you will go out and have a 100% success rate. Your job as a Christian is to tell others the Gospel, and their response to that Gospel is dependent upon God’s saving will and good pleasure brought about by the Holy Spirit. It is not dependent upon how good of a communicator that you are, or the environment that it happens in, or how good of a relationship that you have with that person. The Gospel is powerful and does as God has so intended it to do. Save sinners.

World View

This doctrine has effected my world view more than anything else. The greatest truths are revealed in the hardest of times. The sovereignty of God saved my life. I was at a place a couple years ago where there was no hope, there was no light at the end of the tunnel. My life as I had known it from my perspective was over. So i was planning to kill myself. Then there was a divine intervention that saved me out of that. So I did what everyone does after something traumatic, I started looking for answers. I found my peace in this deep divine truth. That God is sovereign. He is working all things for our good and His good pleasure.

Matthew 10:27–31 ESV

27 What I tell you in the dark, say in the light, and what you hear whispered, proclaim on the housetops. 28 And do not fear those who kill the body but cannot kill the soul. Rather fear him who can destroy both soul and body in hell. 29 Are not two sparrows sold for a penny? And not one of them will fall to the ground apart from your Father. 30 But even the hairs of your head are all numbered. 31 Fear not, therefore; you are of more value than many sparrows.

Even something as insignificant as a bird or a hair is directly connected to the sovereignty of the Father. God is sovereign over everything. Don’t let anyone tell you otherwise.

Pray with me.