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[0:00] Morning. Morning. We wrapped up chapter 16 of the Gospel of John last week, which naturally puts us into chapter 17.

[0:15] And I told Vern, I believe, he was always going door knocking this past week. I don't know if you'd say nervous or not, but John 17, not that the rest of the Bible isn't, but John 17 is some awfully sacred scripture.

[0:37] And definitely one of those that I don't feel like I can do much justice with as far as the depth of it goes. But we'll do our best and hopefully y'all get a blessing out of it.

[0:53] John 17 is an awesome and wonderful chapter. One of the things that makes it so awesome and wonderful to me is that this is what's referred to and has been referred to for a long time by different preachers and theologians and teachers and such as the great high priestly prayer of Jesus Christ.

[1:19] And it's sitting here right in the middle of what's commonly referred to as the farewell or at the end, I should say, of the farewell discourse of Jesus Christ. But what makes it so great to me is that this is just before Christ is betrayed by Judas, just before his arrest, just before he's dragged to an illegal trial.

[1:47] It's just before the crucifixion. And Christ knows these things are going to happen. He knows Judas is betraying him. He knows that Judas would betray him with a kiss.

[2:00] And he knows the guards are on their way. He knows all these things. And yet Christ takes time to pray for me. And Christ took time to pray for you.

[2:13] And that is what makes this chapter so great. He prays for his disciples, those that he's been giving this discourse to, yes, by extension.

[2:25] He's praying for all of us. And we're actually brought up in this great prayer that we have here in John 17. But again, what makes it so great is, well, I mean, the opening verse of this, he's talking about the hour.

[2:40] And this is the hour that we read about in John chapter two. And just for curiosity's sake, I went back through my podcast to see when I taught John chapter two. It was in June of 2023 that we went through that.

[2:54] And the hour of Jesus Christ is brought up then. Hadn't come yet at that point. And then he brings it up again in John chapter seven. And I looked that up. That was in November of 2023 that I taught that.

[3:06] He brings it up again in John chapter 12, the hour of Jesus Christ. It's brought up again. And that was in May of this year. So three times throughout the Gospel of John, we've read about this hour that's being spoken of here in the first verse of John chapter 17.

[3:26] And it's his hour. It's the hour of Christ. It's the hour that his entire ministry has worked for, really his entire life has led up to.

[3:37] It's the culmination of his life. It's the culmination of his earthly life, of his ministry, of everything that he's been doing, every miracle that Jesus Christ performed, every sermon that he preached, everything that he taught, everything has led up to this moment, to this hour.

[3:56] And people will take this scripture. We didn't even start reading it. The people will take this scripture. And those that would contend the Bible and they'll say, well, in the Gospel of Luke.

[4:08] And Christ tells the ones that have had him arrested, the ones that are going to crucify him. He tells them, this is their hour. So which one is it? And folks, their hour was part of his hour because they're the ones that done the arresting.

[4:23] They're the ones that done the crucifying. They're the ones that done all these things. That was all part of the hour of Jesus Christ. But their hour was short lived. The hour of Christ has still got fruit coming out of it.

[4:39] The hour of Christ, his work during this hour that we're talking about here is eternal. There's was very temporal. There's was very temporal.

[4:49] And in the Gospel of Luke where that's brought up that their hour has come, the hour of darkness had come. That was pretty much a warning. You all relish this. You all enjoy this while you've got it because it's not going to last very long.

[5:03] But this work that Christ is doing, this hour that he has come to, it has eternal benefits for us and it's continuing even today.

[5:14] But anyway, all those things being said, John chapter 17 and verse one says, these words spake Jesus and lifted up his eyes to heaven and said, Father, the hour has come.

[5:30] Glorify thy Son that thy Son also may glorify thee. These words spake Jesus and he lifted up his eyes toward heaven regarding the Father in reverence to the Father.

[5:45] He lifted up his eyes toward heaven and said, Father, the hour is come. And again, John 2, John 7 and John 12, we read about this hour that's come up to this point and it was coming then.

[6:01] But now it's here. He says, the hour is come. But he says, glorify thy Son that thy Son also may glorify thee.

[6:11] Even though the hour is come, as in the words of, as Jesus spoke here, even though that's the case, what is cross number one priority?

[6:23] Glorifying the Father. Even though he knows what lies ahead, just a few hours from where we're at right now in the scripture, he knows what lies ahead for him.

[6:35] And yet his number one concern is to glorify the Father. He says, glorify thy Son that thy Son also may glorify thee.

[6:45] How is God going to glorify the Son that the Son may glorify the Father? How can this take place? He glorifies Christ in his resurrection.

[6:58] Christ is glorified then. Christ has been pointing toward the Father through his entire ministry that we've been reading about. His number one concern was to glorify the Father, to point people to the Father.

[7:12] The Father's number one concern was to glorify Christ and to point people to Christ. And here at this culmination, here in this hour that is now come, Christ says, glorify me, glorify me that I may glorify you.

[7:31] And he is glorified in the death, the burial, in the resurrection. He is glorified in the ascension. He is ever glorifying God in the redemptive work that he performed on Calvary's cross.

[7:44] He is glorifying God by souls being redeemed, which is the very purpose that Jesus came. He said, I came to seek and to save that which was lost. And when souls are redeemed, when people are redeemed and they're reconciled back to God, that brings glory to God.

[8:01] So here Christ says, glorify me, but not for my own glory, not for me. You glorify me for you.

[8:12] This is the prayer of God the Son to God the Father that he may be glorified, that the Father may be glorified. Verse two, as thou hast given him power over all flesh, that he should give eternal life to as many as thou hast given him.

[8:31] This is quite an amazing verse here. As thou hast given him power over all flesh, all power is given to Christ. We know this from Matthew 28.

[8:43] He told the disciples just before his ascension, all power is given unto me in heaven and in earth. We know this through, I mean literally, there are hundreds of scriptures in the Old Testament and the New Testament, a lot about all the power of being Christ, being the sons, being Messiah, belonging to Jesus, all this power.

[9:06] He says, as thou hast given him power over all flesh, what does he use that power for? He doesn't use his power to dominate.

[9:20] He doesn't use his power to crush. He doesn't use his power really for anything negative as far as the human mind would perceive.

[9:33] He uses his power to grant eternal life for the Lord. That's what he uses his power for. So many times we see people here on earth that they may have had humble beginnings.

[9:49] They may have started at the bottom of the barrel, so to speak, and they may have climbed, they may have scratched, they may have educated, they may have gotten to the top in any number of certain ways, any number of methods they can reach the top and have power, and that power more often than not will corrupt them.

[10:13] That power, once they get it, once they get a taste of it, it will corrupt them. But Christ uses the power that was given to him by the Father. He plainly says here, as thou hast given him, thou being the Father, him being the Son, as thou hast given him power over all flesh, and he tells what he's going to do with it, he tells why, that he should give eternal life.

[10:41] Christ has power and he has all power. And there's coming today folks. There is coming today when Christ will come back as judge. I know I just used an example just a couple of minutes ago about how he doesn't use his power to crush or to dominate or anything along those lines.

[11:00] There's coming a day though when the enemies of God will be crushed. The enemies of God will be snuffed out, as we might say. They will be put in their rightful place because they are enemies of God.

[11:14] But this power is granted to Christ and Christ uses that power to grant eternal life. And folks, this wasn't a power honestly that Christ earned.

[11:25] You could say that he came and he was obedient to the Father and that earned him that power. And to a very small extent, you might be correct in that, but folks, that's not what it is at all.

[11:37] This power was decreed by God. There are dozens and hundreds of verses that will back that up. You turn to Psalms chapter 2 and read through it sometimes.

[11:50] The ending few verses of that Psalm is God decreeing power to the Son. And it's found throughout other places in Scripture, many other places in Scripture, that God has decreed this to happen.

[12:08] He has announced that it would happen and that it has happened and all this power belongs to Christ. But again, he doesn't use that power to his own advantage.

[12:19] He uses it to grant eternal life to us undeserving people, undeserving sinners. But that in turn brings glory to God.

[12:29] That he should give eternal life to as many as thou has given him. All those that come to Christ, all those that come to God in faith and repentance, those are all given to Christ.

[12:41] I'm not going to get too deep into this because there's a few different takes on this verse. I'm not going to get into that, but I will tell you, all those that come to Christ in faith and repentance are given him by the Father.

[12:57] The Father has given them to the Son. The Son has used this power that God has decreed that he can have to grant eternal life and he grants eternal life to all of those whom the Father has given him.

[13:10] I say praise God for that because that power could be used in a million other ways. I mean, folks, he's God. He can do what he wants to. What does he choose to do? He chooses to save people.

[13:22] He chooses to save people. He could have snuffed us all out. He could have destroyed the world and started afresh. He could have, when Adam and Eve sinned, he could have just killed them all, destroyed the entire world and started new again.

[13:39] He could have done the same thing with Noah. He didn't have to let Noah and his family survive. He could have done the same thing with the Israelites, seeing what they would do, seeing how unappreciative they were that he had rescued them out of Egypt.

[13:53] But he didn't do those things. He did not do those things. He chose to redeem man back to himself and he chose that the Son, that the Son would be sent and die in your stead and in my stead, that we could be redeemed.

[14:14] That power is granted under Christ by the Father. Verse 3, and this is life eternal, that they might know the only true God and Jesus Christ whom thou hast sinned.

[14:30] We talk about eternity a lot. In this church we talk about eternity. We talk about everlasting life. We talk about life eternal as it's phrased here. We talk about immortality and how it's going to be that way.

[14:44] But folks, this is a definition of what eternal life is. What Christ says here gives us a definition. It's just like faith.

[14:55] We read about faith in the Old Testament. We read about it all throughout the New Testament. But we don't get a definition of faith that we get to the book of Hebrews and it says faith is the substance of things hoped for and the evidence of things not seen yet all throughout the Bible we've talked about faith.

[15:09] All throughout the Bible eternal life is brought up. Everlasting life is brought up. But here we have a definition of it. This is life eternal. What is life eternal? That they might know the only true God and Jesus Christ whom thou hast sinned folks.

[15:25] Life eternal. Everlasting life is not our existence in some place. That is not eternal life according to this definition that Christ Himself gives.

[15:39] Life eternal is a relationship. It is not an existence. It's a relationship with God. And I'm just telling you what Christ is saying.

[15:50] He says this is life eternal. That they might know thee, the only true God. That's life eternal. Without a relationship with God.

[16:02] Without a relationship with the only true God. Without a relationship with Christ. Without this relationship we won't know what life eternal is and no one in the world won't know what life eternal is.

[16:15] But this relationship is according to the words of Christ Himself. The relationship is what makes eternal life. Remember in John 14.6 we quote it all the time.

[16:27] Jesus says I'm the way, the truth and the life. And no man coming to the fun to the Father, the only true God. But through me or but by me.

[16:38] But he says he is the way and he is the truth and he is the life. And only he who is life is able to impart that life to anyone. And again, back in up one verse.

[16:50] He has the power to do that and he uses that power just for that. This is amazing scripture. This is life eternal. That they might know thee, the only true God.

[17:04] And Jesus Christ which Thou gave us, or Whom Thou hast sent. So we have Christ here making a statement of exclusivity to God.

[17:20] He says they might know thee, God the Father, the only true God. But then he says and me and Christ and Jesus. So he's saying God is the only true God and he is.

[17:36] But he is God in three separate persons, is he not? God the Father, God the Son, God the Holy Spirit. So he says that they might know thee, the only true God and Jesus Christ.

[17:51] That they might know you, that they might know me and folks to know one is to know the other. You can't know one without knowing the other.

[18:01] But what do we do to deepen that relationship? We've already established by Christ's definition of eternal life here what eternal life is.

[18:15] It's a relationship with God. But what do we do to deepen that relationship? What do we do to deepen that? Keep that thought in mind. Verse four, I have glorified thee on the earth.

[18:26] I have finished the work which thou gave us me to do. Christ still talking to the Father, I have glorified thee on the earth. I have finished the work which thou gave us me to do.

[18:39] And of course, this is another one of those verses where contenders will say, he hadn't finished the cross hadn't happened yet. How could he possibly say that folks? Christ has been there since from eternity past.

[18:53] He has always been and he has always been part of and he has always known of the plan of God. So he could say this with the utmost trustworthiness of the plan of God.

[19:09] He could say it as if it had already happened. Remember how we open this whole prayer when Christ says, the hour is come. That includes his hour.

[19:21] But again, in verse four, I have glorified thee on the earth. I have finished the work which thou gave us me to do. This is one of several passages that we can use saying that God sent Jesus Christ into the world.

[19:38] And I said this is one of many. But he sent because some people will try and argue and they'll say Christ came of his own accord and he did. But he was sent by the Father.

[19:51] Because did he have to do it? I guess is the question there. Christ came of his own accord. Yes, but he was sent off the Father.

[20:01] It was all planned. It was a plan of all three persons of the Godhead that this should take place. And Christ here says, I finished the work that you gave me to do.

[20:16] I finished. Folks, it was as good as done by this point because I promise you it never once crossed Jesus' mind to turn back away from Calvary.

[20:27] It never crossed his mind. You know what? I could leave right now. I could skedaddle out of Jerusalem. I could go to the other side of the world. And these folks would never find me.

[20:38] Never once did that cross his mind. Because Jesus was here to perfectly do the will of the Father and to be perfectly obedient to the Father and what the Father wanted.

[20:55] And he gives us the ultimate example of obedience. Well, let's read verse 5.

[21:06] And now, old Father, we'll go back to verse 4 here in a second. And now, old Father, glorify thou me with thine own self with the glory which I had with thee before the world was.

[21:17] Again, this speaks of the pre-existence of Jesus Christ. He says, glorify thou me with thine own self with the glory which I had with thee before the world was.

[21:32] So he begins this prayer with the hours come, glorify thy Son that thy Son also may glorify thee. And we get to verse 5.

[21:42] And he says, glorify thou me with thine own self with the glory which I had with thee before the world was. Again, Christ is concentrating upon glorifying the Father.

[21:54] But he knows the Father is going to be glorified through him and through his work, through what he is doing. And we might look at these scriptures, including verse 4.

[22:07] I have glorified thee on the earth. I have finished the work which thou gave us me to do. And we look at this and we say, well, that's Christ. And Christ was and is perfect.

[22:18] Of course, he could perfectly obey God. And folks, I'm telling you now, I have never once perfectly obeyed God, nor have you perfectly obeyed God.

[22:29] It is an impossibility for us to do this, but it was not impossible for my Savior Jesus Christ. But it gives us a wonderful example of how we are to glorify God.

[22:44] If I were to ask many people, many churchgoers, many Christians, how do you glorify God? Some of them might say, well, I preach the word. Some of them might say, well, I teach. Some of them might say, well, I sing.

[22:56] Some might say, well, I witness. And I testify. And these are all glorifying things to God. I'm not arguing that. But what do all those things have in common?

[23:07] You're being obedient to God. That's how you glorify God. You're obedient to God. You're obedient to the word. Everything I just listed, preaching, teaching, singing, testifying, witnessing, those are all commandments of God within the scriptures.

[23:26] We are to testify. We are to witness. We are to sing. My goodness. Ask any COC person out there if we're to sing or not. I think what you straight to the verse is in the New Testament, but folks, it's not only the New Testament, it's the Old Testament.

[23:42] Yes, we're to sing. And if that's how you glorify God, glorify. Do that. I highly encourage you to do that. But just like Paul wrote to the church at Corinth in 1 Corinthians in chapter 10, he said, whether you eat or whether you drink whatsoever you do, do it all to the glory of God.

[24:02] No matter what we're doing in our lives, we should do it to the glory of God. And if you're doing something that doesn't bring glory to God, you should ask yourself, should I be doing this at all?

[24:13] Should I be doing this at all? There's some things that we might get into that aren't necessarily sinful, per se, that may not bring glory to God, but it is a good question that you could ask yourselves is, is this bringing glory to God?

[24:34] And if not, should I really be doing it? It's a wonderful question. I need to ask myself. And we should all ask of ourselves. But Christ here, he said again in verse four, I've glorified the on the earth.

[24:47] How did he glorify God by being perfectly obedient to the will of God? And if we want to glorify God, we will strive and we will do our absolute best to be obedient to the will of God.

[25:04] And we will strive to be perfectly obedient, although we're going to fail and we're going to fail miserably as human beings at being perfectly obedient. The folks in these few verses that we've talked about this morning, just in these first five verses, we've seen so much.

[25:23] I mean, this shows the intimacy between the father and the son. And it shows the concern that the son has for the father.

[25:35] And what was the concern? It was to glorify the father. And of course, the father's concern was to glorify the son. And the son glorified the father through his obedience.

[25:49] And eternal life. Eternal life. We'll back up just a little bit more eternal life. Being a relationship with God every time.

[25:59] And I'm as guilty of it as anybody else when I think of eternal life. When I think about eternity in general, I think of a place and I think of me in a place.

[26:10] But it is not a place at all. And it is not my existence in that place. It is a relationship with God. And that's just like Paul wrote to the Philippian church.

[26:22] He said, to no cross, to no cross in his suffering. And just before he gets to that part, he's talking about how everything they do, he counted it all but loss.

[26:35] But to no cross, to no cross. Because that is where eternal life is. Christ is eternal life. He is eternal life. I've glorified the on the earth.

[26:45] I've finished the work which thou gave us me to do. What do we do to finish the work? Or are we getting lazy? Or are we getting slothful? In our work for God. Christ finished it.

[26:57] John not tain, he said, it is finished. And then he bowed his head. And then he gave up the ghost. But he said, it is finished. The work of redemption for mankind was complete at that point.

[27:11] But had Christ not risen from the dead and Christ not ascended to the Father, Christ would not have been Christ. But he did do those things. Again verse 5, and now, O Father glorify thou me with thine own self.

[27:25] Glorify me with thine own self, with the glory which I had with thee before the world was. Again speaking of the pre-existence of Christ and the glory that he had then.

[27:39] That Christ is concerned again for the glory of God. And I encourage you all that whatever you do to do it to the glory of God.

[27:52] Whatever you do. I've heard a lot of things that sounded really funny to me of people doing them to the glory of God. But when I really thought about it, you can do that to the glory of God.

[28:06] You can do this. You can do that. Charles Spurgeon had some odd things that you could do to the glory of God. People especially nowadays, he was in the 1800s.

[28:18] People nowadays see it as really strange. But you can do every one of those things that he spoke of to the glory of God. I won't get into that list of things.

[28:28] And actually I'm not going to go any further than verse 5 this morning. If you have any questions or comments on any of that.

[28:40] God bless you all. I appreciate your attention. God bless you all.