[SPEAKER_00]: Welcome to the preaching ministry of the Agape Baptist Church in George South Africa.
[SPEAKER_01]: Good morning, church.
[SPEAKER_01]: It's a joy to be here with you this morning.
[SPEAKER_01]: You would please turn with me to John chapter seventeen as we continue our study through this gospel according to John.
[SPEAKER_01]: John seventeen.
[SPEAKER_01]: Jesus is about to be betrayed.
[SPEAKER_01]: But before he goes to the cross and lays down his life willingly, he's going to lift up this prayer for his own glory and for our good.
[SPEAKER_01]: These two things can never be separated for the Christian.
[SPEAKER_01]: The glory of Jesus and our good.
[SPEAKER_01]: They go inseparably together.
[SPEAKER_01]: The higher our king is exalted because we are his subjects, his disciples.
[SPEAKER_01]: The higher our king is exalted.
[SPEAKER_01]: The greater our joy will be if we are hoping in him.
[SPEAKER_01]: If our joy is in him, if we love him as our Savior king,
[SPEAKER_01]: And the greater he is exalted and lifted up, the greater our joy will be as his people.
[SPEAKER_01]: Do you desire joy this morning?
[SPEAKER_01]: I've never met a human being that doesn't want joy.
[SPEAKER_01]: They might have used other words, but what they're seeking is joy to have purpose and meaning and acceptance to have warmth
[SPEAKER_01]: have a purpose.
[SPEAKER_01]: These things are all joy filled.
[SPEAKER_01]: So I think everyone sitting in this room this morning desires joy.
[SPEAKER_01]: And so if you do desire joy this morning, then I call you to think diligently about the claims of Jesus's glory found in our passage this morning.
[SPEAKER_01]: Knowing these truths and hoping in them will sustain your joy as his disciple, no matter what is happening in your life.
[SPEAKER_01]: No matter how rough or crazy the roller coaster of this life might be for you.
[SPEAKER_01]: If you hope in these types of truths about the glory of Jesus, your King, then they will sustain you.
[SPEAKER_01]: If you hope in them, they will sustain you with joy.
[SPEAKER_01]: No matter what is happening in your life.
[SPEAKER_01]: So with that introduction, let's look together at John Seventeen, looking at verses one through thirteen together this morning.
[SPEAKER_01]: I'm only going to read half of Jesus' prayer.
[SPEAKER_01]: I wanted to read the whole thing, but honestly, it is so packed with truth.
[SPEAKER_01]: I don't think we can digest more than thirteen verses.
[SPEAKER_01]: I may have picked too many verses, but that's what we have before us this morning.
[SPEAKER_01]: Beginning with verse one, how Jesus asks for glory.
[SPEAKER_01]: When Jesus had spoken these words to his disciples, he lifted up his eyes to heaven and said, Father, the hour has come glorify your son that the Son may glorify you.
[SPEAKER_01]: Since you have given him authority over all flesh to give eternal life to all whom you have given him.
[SPEAKER_01]: And this is eternal life that they know you, the only true God and Jesus Christ whom you have sent.
[SPEAKER_01]: I glorified you on earth, having accomplished the work that you gave me to do.
[SPEAKER_01]: And now, Father, glorify me in your own presence with the glory that I had with you before the world existed.
[SPEAKER_01]: I have manifested your name to the people whom you gave me out of the world.
[SPEAKER_01]: Yours they were, and you gave them to me, and they have kept your word.
[SPEAKER_01]: Now they know that everything that you have given me is from you.
[SPEAKER_01]: 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.
[SPEAKER_01]: I am praying for them.
[SPEAKER_01]: I am not praying for the world, but for those whom you have given me, for they are yours, all mine are yours, and yours are mine, and I am glorified in them.
[SPEAKER_01]: And I am no longer in the world, but they are in the world.
[SPEAKER_01]: And I am coming to you.
[SPEAKER_01]: Holy Father, keep them in your name, which you have given me, that they may be one, even as we are one.
[SPEAKER_01]: While I was with them, I kept them in your name, which you have given me.
[SPEAKER_01]: I've guarded them, and not one of them has been lost, except the son of destruction, that the scripture might be fulfilled.
[SPEAKER_01]: But now I am coming to you,
[SPEAKER_01]: and these things I speak in the world that they may have my joy fulfilled in themselves.
[SPEAKER_01]: Let's go to the Lord and ask Him to bless these words to us.
[SPEAKER_01]: Let's pray.
[SPEAKER_01]: Heavenly Father, we love you and we need you and we need you to reveal
[SPEAKER_01]: truths in this passage this morning.
[SPEAKER_01]: In Jesus's words, please Father make these words come alive to our soul.
[SPEAKER_01]: So we might worship you in spirit and in truth this morning.
[SPEAKER_01]: So Father, I pray with the heavenly beings before you
[SPEAKER_01]: and we praise you in worship you saying holy, holy, holy is the Lord God Almighty who was and is and is to come.
[SPEAKER_01]: Where the are you are Lord and God to receive glory and honor and power for you created all things and by your will they existed and were created.
[SPEAKER_01]: And to the lamb that was slain, we worship and say, worthy are you to take the scroll and to open its seals.
[SPEAKER_01]: For you were slain and by your blood, you ransom people for God from every tribe and language and people and nation.
[SPEAKER_01]: And you have made them.
[SPEAKER_01]: You have made us a kingdom and priest to our God.
[SPEAKER_01]: And we shall reign on the earth worthy is the lamb who was slain.
[SPEAKER_01]: to receive power and wealth and wisdom and might and honor and glory and blessing.
[SPEAKER_01]: To him who sits on the throne and to the lamb be blessing and honor and glory and might forever and ever.
[SPEAKER_01]: Amen.
[SPEAKER_01]: Please remember with me the matter in which this gospel began all the way back
[SPEAKER_01]: Over a year ago, I think, in John chapter one, verse one, three, three, John testifies saying, in the beginning was the word.
[SPEAKER_01]: In the word was with God, and the word was God.
[SPEAKER_01]: He was in the beginning with God.
[SPEAKER_01]: All things were made through Him, and without Him was not anything made that was made.
[SPEAKER_01]: And then, in John one, four teams, a little while later it says, John testifies again, and the word became flesh.
[SPEAKER_01]: And dwelt among us, and we have seen his glory glory as of the only son from the Father, full of grace and truth.
[SPEAKER_01]: Now, in John seventeenth verse one, Jesus says, the fuck to the Father, Father, the hour has come glorify your Son, that the Son may glorify you.
[SPEAKER_01]: This is the will and plan of God.
[SPEAKER_01]: that the Father's holiness and righteousness be put on public display through the exaltation of His eternal Son in the form of human flesh.
[SPEAKER_01]: And how will the Father exalt His Son in human flesh by nailing Him to a cross of wood?
[SPEAKER_01]: so that he might die in the place of unworthy sinners.
[SPEAKER_01]: And after he has died, so that the Father might raise his son's body, his human flesh in victory on the third day, and then elevate him to his place
[SPEAKER_01]: The Father's right hand in glory.
[SPEAKER_01]: That is the will of God for His glory.
[SPEAKER_01]: Jesus emphasizes the legitimacy of His receiving glory in verse five in our passage.
[SPEAKER_01]: Just please look with me verse five.
[SPEAKER_01]: Jesus prays, and now Father glorify me in your own presence with the glory that I had with you before the world existed.
[SPEAKER_01]: Jesus is asking His Father to once more robe him in the majesty in the glory
[SPEAKER_01]: that he had with the Father as God before the foundation of the world, which he always had been robed in.
[SPEAKER_01]: That is his eternal condition as robed in majesty.
[SPEAKER_01]: The Son's identity with God and was God
[SPEAKER_01]: So it's before the creation of the world, legitimizes his asking to be once more robed in splendor with God and as God.
[SPEAKER_01]: That is what legitimizes this request.
[SPEAKER_01]: There is no division in the glory of God.
[SPEAKER_01]: To glorify the Son is to glorify His Father, who sent Him
[SPEAKER_01]: And if you wish to honor the Father, then you must worship His Son.
[SPEAKER_01]: You cannot have one without the other.
[SPEAKER_01]: You either have them both.
[SPEAKER_01]: Or you do not have either one of them.
[SPEAKER_01]: John has made that painfully clear in this gospel.
[SPEAKER_01]: And in our passage, this morning Jesus pulls back the curtain and reveals to his hearers the unity in the Godhead in the salvation of God's people.
[SPEAKER_01]: Jesus is speaking to his Heavenly Father, but notice and think with me practically for a second, he speaks out loud in front of his eleven disciples.
[SPEAKER_01]: He didn't have to do that.
[SPEAKER_01]: He could have separated himself and had a private conversation with his father.
[SPEAKER_01]: But instead, he speaks out loud in front of them and then ordains that it be written for our benefit in Scripture by the power of the Holy Spirit.
[SPEAKER_01]: So these words are for us.
[SPEAKER_01]: Jesus knows all of these things.
[SPEAKER_01]: The Father knows all of these things.
[SPEAKER_01]: Jesus has put this here in the Word of God for our benefit and for the joy of His disciples.
[SPEAKER_01]: He has put this here that we all might know and rejoice in how the disciples of Jesus have been swept up in the glory of God.
[SPEAKER_01]: He wants us to know some things, but what's happening to us?
[SPEAKER_01]: We're a part of, and that as we know these things and hope in these things, we will rejoice in Jesus.
[SPEAKER_01]: To draw our minds to this reality of the glory we have been swept up into, Jesus lists five means for his own glory.
[SPEAKER_01]: Five means for Jesus's glory.
[SPEAKER_01]: A means is like a channel or conduit.
[SPEAKER_01]: It's the way in which something is going to come to Jesus.
[SPEAKER_01]: How glory is going to be directed at Jesus.
[SPEAKER_01]: That's what we're going to be looking at this morning.
[SPEAKER_01]: Five means for Jesus's glory, which we'll see the Father has given him.
[SPEAKER_01]: This is the will of the Father.
[SPEAKER_01]: There is no division in this glory.
[SPEAKER_01]: As Jesus is glorified, the Father says, I am pleased.
[SPEAKER_01]: So let's look at the glory of Jesus and these five means for His glory.
[SPEAKER_01]: First, we see in verse two that the Father has given the Son authority to give eternal life
[SPEAKER_01]: The concept of eternal life was already known in Jesus' day.
[SPEAKER_01]: So much so that people came to Jesus asking what must I do to inherit eternal life?
[SPEAKER_01]: Now they weren't asking him to give them eternal life.
[SPEAKER_01]: They were asking him simply as a rabbi or as a teacher about his opinion on the Old Testament writings.
[SPEAKER_01]: But here,
[SPEAKER_01]: in our passage.
[SPEAKER_01]: We see that Jesus says out loud that God has given the Son authority over all flesh to give eternal life.
[SPEAKER_01]: Eternal life now comes from the hand of Jesus.
[SPEAKER_01]: But what is eternal life?
[SPEAKER_01]: Most of the time when we hear this phrase eternal life, we probably think of everlasting life
[SPEAKER_01]: life without end, no more death, these concepts.
[SPEAKER_01]: And there are passages where that is the emphasis of the passage.
[SPEAKER_01]: The fact that death is behind us, there is no more death, they will, this life will not end, that is the emphasis of some passages that use this phrase eternal life.
[SPEAKER_01]: but never ending life or everlasting life doesn't actually capture the beauty of this phrase.
[SPEAKER_01]: It doesn't capture the beauty of the phrase eternal life because eternal is meant to emphasize without beginning or end.
[SPEAKER_01]: That's what eternal means.
[SPEAKER_01]: No beginning and no end.
[SPEAKER_01]: So how is it that we can receive eternal life?
[SPEAKER_01]: Receiving eternal life means more than simply never dying.
[SPEAKER_01]: Eternal life points to the eternal nature of God.
[SPEAKER_01]: The word eternal points us to look at God and think about his kind of life.
[SPEAKER_01]: It's the concept of us mere mortals living with God, the eternal one.
[SPEAKER_01]: That's what this phrase is meant to point our eyes to.
[SPEAKER_01]: So for us to say that we have eternal life, which every Christian should be able to humbly, yet joyfully claim, I have been granted eternal life.
[SPEAKER_01]: That's the Christians rejoicing words.
[SPEAKER_01]: But for us to say that it means that we have received life with God.
[SPEAKER_01]: Yes, it never ends, but the main factor is that it's life and peace with the eternal God who never had a beginning, who never will have an end.
[SPEAKER_01]: We have a life in him.
[SPEAKER_01]: That is how our life begins.
[SPEAKER_01]: This is what will sustain us and we begin to experience this today, even now.
[SPEAKER_01]: We experience eternal life now as we begin to taste what it is like to walk with God.
[SPEAKER_01]: Now, there is more to come.
[SPEAKER_01]: There is so much more to come.
[SPEAKER_01]: But yes, you can say, two day, you are experiencing, if you're a Christian, you are experiencing now eternal life because you have begun to walk with God and your inner being and is now changing the way you live your bodily life before others.
[SPEAKER_01]: Jesus summarizes this idea in verse three, body, eternal life.
[SPEAKER_01]: about knowing God and walking with God, He says in verse three, and this is eternal life that they know you, Father, that they know you, the only true God and Jesus Christ whom you have sent.
[SPEAKER_01]: Knowing God through Jesus Christ is how you enter into eternal life.
[SPEAKER_01]: It is how you are kept secure in this life and it will be your delight in the life to come.
[SPEAKER_01]: To know God through His Son.
[SPEAKER_01]: For the glory of His Son, the Father has given Jesus authority to give eternal life to men.
[SPEAKER_01]: But who are the recipients of eternal life?
[SPEAKER_01]: And that is our second means.
[SPEAKER_01]: Jesus tells us that for his glory, God the Father has given him a people.
[SPEAKER_01]: It's the Father's people.
[SPEAKER_01]: And you will repeat that the Father has given these people to Jesus.
[SPEAKER_01]: Look with me at John, seventeen verse two.
[SPEAKER_01]: says the Father has given Jesus authority over all flesh to give eternal life to all whom you have given him.
[SPEAKER_01]: He's talking about a people, a people.
[SPEAKER_01]: We've seen this concept several times in the gospel according to John, especially in John chapter six.
[SPEAKER_01]: I'll read for you verse thirty seven.
[SPEAKER_01]: Jesus says, all that the Father gives me will come to me.
[SPEAKER_01]: and whoever comes to me I will never cast out.
[SPEAKER_01]: Speaking about a people.
[SPEAKER_01]: For I have come down from heaven not to do my own will but the will of him who sent me.
[SPEAKER_01]: And this is the will of him who sent me that I should lose nothing of all that he has given me.
[SPEAKER_01]: Speaking about a people.
[SPEAKER_01]: Jesus says, I will not lose them.
[SPEAKER_01]: But we'll raise it up on the last day, the resurrection on the last day.
[SPEAKER_01]: These are the people that Jesus gives eternal life to.
[SPEAKER_01]: The people that God, the Father, has given to Him.
[SPEAKER_01]: Now you might ask, doesn't God love the whole world?
[SPEAKER_01]: Yes.
[SPEAKER_01]: He does.
[SPEAKER_01]: He says as much.
[SPEAKER_01]: Doesn't the genuine offer a piece with God and eternal life go out to everyone?
[SPEAKER_01]: Yes, it does.
[SPEAKER_01]: He says as much.
[SPEAKER_01]: But as we saw in John one verse eleven in other places,
[SPEAKER_01]: We saw that when the glory of the only son of God came into the world that he created, the world did not recognize the glory of Jesus.
[SPEAKER_01]: When the light of God's glory shown into the world, natural men left to themselves who see His glory, they ran to the darkness, they loved.
[SPEAKER_01]: the darkness rather than the light.
[SPEAKER_01]: That means that even if you were standing there and looking with your human eyes and listening with your human ears to when Jesus rose, Lazarus from the grave, He says, Lazarus, come out.
[SPEAKER_01]: And this man would be in the grave for days, walks out.
[SPEAKER_01]: wrapped up in burial cloths.
[SPEAKER_01]: Even if you were standing there and looking at that, the God had not moved through his Holy Spirit by blowing his life-giving spirit into your soul.
[SPEAKER_01]: If you were standing there on your own as a natural man or woman,
[SPEAKER_01]: You would have seen that and heard that and turned and ran to the Pharisees saying, this man is ruining our nation.
[SPEAKER_01]: He is going to take authority away from our religious people.
[SPEAKER_01]: We need to kill him.
[SPEAKER_01]: That is what the natural man or woman does when they see the glory of God.
[SPEAKER_01]: They run from it.
[SPEAKER_01]: and they hate it because it reveals to us our own weakness, our own undeservedness, our own uncleanness before God in His glory.
[SPEAKER_01]: But as John tells us, God is the one who
[SPEAKER_01]: If you were standing there, let's rewind the illustration now.
[SPEAKER_01]: If you were standing there looking with human eyes and hearing with human ears, Jesus says, Jesus saying, Lazarus come out and God blows his spirit into your soul giving you life.
[SPEAKER_01]: If God does that, you say, this is the Son of God.
[SPEAKER_01]: Arms, sign up.
[SPEAKER_01]: God is the one who does this for his people.
[SPEAKER_01]: We saw that clearly in John six.
[SPEAKER_01]: Jesus says it in verse, forty-four of John six.
[SPEAKER_01]: He clearly teaches there saying, no one can come to me unless the Father who sent me draws him.
[SPEAKER_01]: It's impossible
[SPEAKER_01]: for a fallen human being to come in faith to Jesus unless God draws his soul, his spirit.
[SPEAKER_01]: Again, he says it in John six, six, five, no one can come to me unless it is granted him by the Father.
[SPEAKER_01]: Faith and repentance are the gift of God.
[SPEAKER_01]: The Father has planned to permit this human rejection of His Son.
[SPEAKER_01]: The Father was not surprised by the rejection of His Son.
[SPEAKER_01]: He sent the prophets to prophesy about the suffering servant who would be despised and rejected by men thousands of years before He came.
[SPEAKER_01]: So the Father did plan to permit the rejection of His Son.
[SPEAKER_01]: He did this with an exception.
[SPEAKER_01]: There is an exception.
[SPEAKER_01]: God also planned to reach down into the sin cursed pit of human rebellion and pull out for himself a people that would glorify his name for all eternity.
[SPEAKER_01]: That is the will of God for his name.
[SPEAKER_01]: The scriptures call these people, the people of God.
[SPEAKER_01]: The chosen, the called out ones, the elect of God.
[SPEAKER_01]: Not because of their works, please hear me.
[SPEAKER_01]: This is not because of us.
[SPEAKER_01]: But instead because of God's grace, which has granted them repentance,
[SPEAKER_01]: and faith.
[SPEAKER_01]: We read about this in Ephesians two verses eight through ten.
[SPEAKER_01]: Paul says to the church, four by grace, you have been saved through faith.
[SPEAKER_01]: Grace saved faith.
[SPEAKER_01]: He says, and this is not your own doing.
[SPEAKER_01]: It's not your own doing.
[SPEAKER_01]: It is the gift of God.
[SPEAKER_01]: Not a result of works, so that no one may boast, no one will stand and brag of their own righteousness before God.
[SPEAKER_01]: Not a single being will do so.
[SPEAKER_01]: He goes, Paul goes on to say, for we Christians are His workmanship.
[SPEAKER_01]: He's the Potter.
[SPEAKER_01]: We are the clay.
[SPEAKER_01]: created in Christ Jesus for good works, which God prepared beforehand.
[SPEAKER_01]: The good works.
[SPEAKER_01]: He prepared them beforehand that we should walk and then this is the doing of God.
[SPEAKER_01]: All praise and glory goes to Him.
[SPEAKER_01]: In our passage this morning, Jesus further reveals the hidden work of God in verse six.
[SPEAKER_01]: I'm back at John seventeen for six now.
[SPEAKER_01]: Jesus says, I have manifested your name, Father, 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.
[SPEAKER_01]: Now they know that everything that you have given me is from you.
[SPEAKER_01]: For I have given them the words that you gave me, and they have received them, and have come to know and truth that I came from you, and they have believed that you sent me.
[SPEAKER_01]: I am praying for them.
[SPEAKER_01]: I am not praying for the world, but for those whom you have given me, for they are yours.
[SPEAKER_01]: All mine are yours, and yours are mine.
[SPEAKER_01]: And listen to this church.
[SPEAKER_01]: He says, and I, Jesus, am glorified in them.
[SPEAKER_01]: That's Christian's church.
[SPEAKER_01]: That's his church.
[SPEAKER_01]: Jesus is glorified in his church.
[SPEAKER_01]: His people.
[SPEAKER_01]: If you are sitting here this morning,
[SPEAKER_01]: having heard the words of Jesus, having believed the words of Jesus and are currently striving to keep the words of Jesus out of love for your Savior King, then you can know Christian that you have been chosen and called by God the Father and that you have belonged to Him since before the foundation of the world.
[SPEAKER_01]: Not just as some unknown, cloudy group of people that God the Father said, I pick the church.
[SPEAKER_01]: No, he has known you by name.
[SPEAKER_01]: He has known you by name since before light was created.
[SPEAKER_01]: And church know as we look at verse ten.
[SPEAKER_01]: Know that you have been chosen and called for a purpose.
[SPEAKER_01]: What is that purpose?
[SPEAKER_01]: To glorify Jesus.
[SPEAKER_01]: He says, all mine are yours and yours are mine and I am glorified in them.
[SPEAKER_01]: Yes, he's talking about the eleven disciples very specifically in that moment.
[SPEAKER_01]: I believe he's also talking about the other people who've come to faith in him.
[SPEAKER_01]: We weren't in that right there in that setting with him.
[SPEAKER_01]: And we're going to find out, maybe next week, how he says he's not just praying for the eleven
[SPEAKER_01]: He's also praying for all those who had come to Jesus and faith through the disciples' Word of testimony.
[SPEAKER_01]: He's talking about us Christians.
[SPEAKER_01]: He's talking about us.
[SPEAKER_01]: And we can know that we glorify Him by hoping in Him.
[SPEAKER_01]: So when you hope in Jesus in this fallen world, when you hope in Jesus, you rope him in the glorious hope of the saints.
[SPEAKER_01]: We're part of his splendor.
[SPEAKER_01]: And when we hope in him, we experience the joy of walking with God through Jesus.
[SPEAKER_01]: His glory as our hope.
[SPEAKER_01]: brings us eternal joys.
[SPEAKER_01]: Third, the Father's work is given to Jesus.
[SPEAKER_01]: This is how He brings about our repentance and our faith through His work on the earth.
[SPEAKER_01]: Look with me at verse four.
[SPEAKER_01]: Jesus says, I glorified you on earth, Father.
[SPEAKER_01]: having accomplished the work that you gave me to do.
[SPEAKER_01]: What is the work that Jesus was given to do?
[SPEAKER_01]: Well, most generally, I believe it could be every element, every moment of his life here on earth.
[SPEAKER_01]: Even his incarnation, the coming in flesh, or taking on flesh in his birth,
[SPEAKER_01]: was part of his work, part of how he willingly became flesh and dwelt among us, yet without sin.
[SPEAKER_01]: This is all part of Jesus' work that he was given by the Father.
[SPEAKER_01]: More spectacularly, more like amazingly maybe you could say that it was his signs and wonders, his miracles.
[SPEAKER_01]: These are the things we like to look at.
[SPEAKER_01]: We say, that's the works of God.
[SPEAKER_01]: Yes, that is true.
[SPEAKER_01]: He did fulfill many of God's promises and He showed that God was faithful to the promises made in the Old Testament.
[SPEAKER_01]: But verse six, possibly helps us the most to understand Jesus' specific meaning.
[SPEAKER_01]: He says in verse six, I have manifested your name to the people whom you gave me out of the world.
[SPEAKER_01]: The manifest God's name is to clearly show who God is.
[SPEAKER_01]: What His character has like in their day a name had way had far more meaning and weight than it does today.
[SPEAKER_01]: A name, what was in a name was that person's identity, their character.
[SPEAKER_01]: This again goes back to John chapter one, like bookings to Jesus' work during his life here on earth.
[SPEAKER_01]: In chapter one verse eighteen, John testify saying, no one has ever seen God.
[SPEAKER_01]: The only God who is at the Father's side, he has made him known.
[SPEAKER_01]: He has made him known.
[SPEAKER_01]: That phrase he has made him known is where we get the Greek expression or the Greek word where we have our English word for exegesis.
[SPEAKER_01]: The idea of looking into the words about God and then drawing out the meaning that's there.
[SPEAKER_01]: The truths that's there.
[SPEAKER_01]: Exegesis looking into the words about God.
[SPEAKER_01]: to scare you thing and trying to rightly pull out the meaning that's there.
[SPEAKER_01]: Exegesis.
[SPEAKER_01]: But John says he uses this word, speaking about Jesus.
[SPEAKER_01]: John says that Jesus is the one who was with God and was God and then came to us and excegated God.
[SPEAKER_01]: Jesus is the excegite of God.
[SPEAKER_01]: That's what we see in John throughout this gospel.
[SPEAKER_01]: There is no greater manifestation of God.
[SPEAKER_01]: No greater expositor of God.
[SPEAKER_01]: No greater revelation of the most high God.
[SPEAKER_01]: If you hold the Scriptures in your hands this morning, then you can know that you have the eye-witness testimony of the work of Jesus.
[SPEAKER_01]: how he manifested the character of God to men and women.
[SPEAKER_01]: That's what you hold in your hand.
[SPEAKER_01]: The eye witness testimony of the manifestation of God.
[SPEAKER_01]: You also hold in your hands the Father's words which he gave Jesus to come to earth and speak and that is our fourth
[SPEAKER_01]: point this morning, our fourth means for Jesus' glory is the Father's words.
[SPEAKER_01]: In verse six through age, Jesus says that God's people have kept the Father's words, and this is why they've kept it.
[SPEAKER_01]: Because they recognize Jesus' words as from the Father, and they receive Jesus' words, and they have believed that Jesus was sent by His Father with these words.
[SPEAKER_01]: As his disciples testified, saying of Jesus, where else shall we go?
[SPEAKER_01]: You, Jesus, have the words of eternal life, eternal life, the God life you have.
[SPEAKER_01]: You're speaking to us.
[SPEAKER_01]: even his opponents, some guards, soldiers who were sent to arrest him, came back to the religious leaders, saying in John seven, that of Jesus that no one ever spoke like this man, wisdom and words of God is what they were testifying about.
[SPEAKER_01]: Yes, the law was given through Moses,
[SPEAKER_01]: It had a type of glory.
[SPEAKER_01]: It was glorious.
[SPEAKER_01]: The law was given through Moses.
[SPEAKER_01]: But grace and truth came through Jesus Christ for Jesus's glory.
[SPEAKER_01]: And his glory has so far outshone the glory of Moses and the law
[SPEAKER_01]: That was glorious.
[SPEAKER_01]: The law on the Old Testament was glorious.
[SPEAKER_01]: It was good.
[SPEAKER_01]: It was for the good of God's people.
[SPEAKER_01]: What was glorious has been so far outshone by the glory of Jesus, the grace and truth of Jesus, that it's in the background.
[SPEAKER_01]: It's simply the stage for the glorious one and his words, his grace and his truth.
[SPEAKER_01]: They are not an opposition.
[SPEAKER_01]: but Moses is in the background.
[SPEAKER_01]: Jesus is the one through whom grace and truth came as John testifies in chapter one.
[SPEAKER_01]: Finally, the Father has given Jesus his own name, the Father's name, for Jesus's glory.
[SPEAKER_01]: Look with me at verses ten through twelve, Jesus prays to his Father
[SPEAKER_01]: Saying, all mine are yours, and yours are mine, and I am glorified in them.
[SPEAKER_01]: He's talking about the people.
[SPEAKER_01]: God has given him, given him, then verse eleven.
[SPEAKER_01]: And I am no longer in the world.
[SPEAKER_01]: He's leaving, but they are in the world.
[SPEAKER_01]: He's leaving us behind.
[SPEAKER_01]: So he's praying for us.
[SPEAKER_01]: He says, and I am coming to you.
[SPEAKER_01]: He is going to ascend and sit at the right hand of the Father.
[SPEAKER_01]: And he says, holy Father, keep them in your name, which you have given me.
[SPEAKER_01]: That they may be one, even as we are one, first twelve.
[SPEAKER_01]: While I was with them, I kept them in your name, which you have given me.
[SPEAKER_01]: twice Jesus states that the Father gave His name to Jesus.
[SPEAKER_01]: What does this mean?
[SPEAKER_01]: We've already seen that Jesus manifested the Father's name, which means to show God's character, to show who He is,
[SPEAKER_01]: We've seen that Jesus is the living breathing exegesis of God of His character, who He is.
[SPEAKER_01]: I believe Jesus is again emphasizing the character of God.
[SPEAKER_01]: Especially since Jesus begins his prayer with Holy Father.
[SPEAKER_01]: So first, He is talking about the character of God.
[SPEAKER_01]: His name is tied to the character of God.
[SPEAKER_01]: Jesus says first that the Father is holy, holy Father.
[SPEAKER_01]: Just as the four living creatures in Revelation cry out day and night, saying in Revelation four, holy, holy, holy is the Lord God Almighty who was and is and is to come.
[SPEAKER_01]: I'll put it on the screen for you.
[SPEAKER_01]: This three times repetition of holy is not vain repetition.
[SPEAKER_01]: But represents the excellency of the Father's holiness.
[SPEAKER_01]: We might say in English that the Father is holy.
[SPEAKER_01]: Holy year, holy yes, it doesn't get any holier.
[SPEAKER_01]: He is complete in his holiness.
[SPEAKER_01]: Notice what the four living creatures also proclaim about the holiest Father.
[SPEAKER_01]: They say that He is the Lord God Almighty.
[SPEAKER_01]: The Lord God Almighty.
[SPEAKER_01]: It is this fact about the Father's right as the Lord and His might as the Almighty.
[SPEAKER_01]: It is this fact which makes it possible for Him to keep the disciples.
[SPEAKER_01]: He is able
[SPEAKER_01]: as Jesus prays in our passage saying, in verse eleven, holy Father, keep them in your name.
[SPEAKER_01]: So He is holy and He is able to keep them.
[SPEAKER_01]: Notice what the four living creatures say next in Revelation four.
[SPEAKER_01]: Holy, holy, holy is the Lord, God Almighty, who was and is and is to come.
[SPEAKER_01]: This is a description of the Father's existence.
[SPEAKER_01]: He was, he is, and he will be.
[SPEAKER_01]: But more than just a description, this is a reference to the name of God, who revealed himself to Moses in the burning bush as the I am.
[SPEAKER_01]: Not I was, not I will be, not I was created.
[SPEAKER_01]: He says, I am who I am.
[SPEAKER_01]: This is the eternal God, never created, never had a beginning.
[SPEAKER_01]: Moses says, who are who, what name am I supposed to introduce you to to God's people in Egypt?
[SPEAKER_01]: He simply says, I am, or I will be who I will be, or also could be translated, that God who is.
[SPEAKER_01]: This is the name of God.
[SPEAKER_01]: In our Bibles, the translators often capitalize all the letters in the word Lord, L-O-R-D, all caps.
[SPEAKER_01]: When you see that in your Bible, you can know it is the Hebrew name of names, Yahweh, the holiest name.
[SPEAKER_01]: This is the name of God.
[SPEAKER_01]: As he gave it to Moses at the burning bush in Exodus four, I'll read it for you.
[SPEAKER_01]: Exodus four, fifteen.
[SPEAKER_01]: God also said to Moses, say this, when you're introducing me, say this to the people of Israel, the Lord, all caps.
[SPEAKER_01]: The Lord, Yahweh is what he's saying.
[SPEAKER_01]: Yahweh, the God of your Father, the God of Abraham, the God of Isaac, and the God of Jacob has sent me to you.
[SPEAKER_01]: This is my name forever, and thus I am to remember throughout all generations as the Lord.
[SPEAKER_01]: That is his name.
[SPEAKER_01]: So we've seen that the Father is holy.
[SPEAKER_01]: The Father is almighty, and the Father simply is.
[SPEAKER_01]: That's his name, the Lord, the eternal God, the I am Yahweh.
[SPEAKER_01]: The Father is.
[SPEAKER_01]: Jesus is asking His Father to keep His disciples in this name.
[SPEAKER_01]: Keep them, but anybody's saying is keep them in your holiness.
[SPEAKER_01]: Keep them by your almighty power and keep them living in your eternal life.
[SPEAKER_01]: Keep them in your name, who you are, your eternal life.
[SPEAKER_01]: Keep them walking in that.
[SPEAKER_01]: But notice with me the most shocking thing.
[SPEAKER_01]: Jesus' twice repeats.
[SPEAKER_01]: Keep them in your name, which you have given me.
[SPEAKER_01]: He's talking about the name.
[SPEAKER_01]: The name has been given to Jesus.
[SPEAKER_01]: This man, Jesus, is no ordinary man.
[SPEAKER_01]: For he bears the name of God, the Father.
[SPEAKER_01]: He is given the holiest name.
[SPEAKER_01]: He is given the name, the Lord.
[SPEAKER_01]: John has repeatedly made this claim throughout the gut this gospel.
[SPEAKER_01]: Jesus repeats the I am claim over and over again.
[SPEAKER_01]: And we have studied all of those.
[SPEAKER_01]: So I will show you another incredible claim in Scripture made by the Apostle Paul about this name.
[SPEAKER_01]: Paul quotes Isaiah, forty-five or twenty-three, where Yahweh says to me every knee shall bow and every tongue shall swear allegiance prophetic words about the worship of Yahweh.
[SPEAKER_01]: But Paul, under the inspiration of the Holy Spirit, is so bold as to quote this passage while inserting the name of Jesus.
[SPEAKER_01]: I'll put it on the screen for you again.
[SPEAKER_01]: In Philippians two, verse nine through eleven, we read the words of the Apostle Paul.
[SPEAKER_01]: He says that because of Jesus' obedience,
[SPEAKER_01]: God has highly exalted Him and bestowed on Him the name that is above every name.
[SPEAKER_01]: So that at the name of Jesus every knee should bow in heaven and on earth and under the earth and every tongue confess that Jesus Christ is Lord to the glory of God.
[SPEAKER_01]: the Father.
[SPEAKER_01]: This is how God the Father will be glorified, or you will not enter into His glory.
[SPEAKER_01]: He will be glorified by you worshiping His Son, or you will not enter into His glory.
[SPEAKER_01]: Father has given Jesus his holy name, the Lord.
[SPEAKER_01]: So that when you hear the name of Jesus, we will all hear and worship him as the son of God, who is holy, almighty, the eternal one, the Lord over all creation in heaven and on earth.
[SPEAKER_01]: Now these thoughts, these truths,
[SPEAKER_01]: that we see here.
[SPEAKER_01]: These five means of the glory of Jesus.
[SPEAKER_01]: They might fill you with emotion.
[SPEAKER_01]: You might feel very warm the things about Jesus.
[SPEAKER_01]: I hope you do.
[SPEAKER_01]: I hope you're not able to sit here with cobwebs still hanging around in your soul right now.
[SPEAKER_01]: But still I asked the question, so what?
[SPEAKER_01]: Yes, the father is glorifying his son through all of these means.
[SPEAKER_01]: We're about mortal people.
[SPEAKER_01]: We're just human beings.
[SPEAKER_01]: We're just trying to get our groceries and take our kids to school and make sure that the babies are taking care of and their school teacher that you got those forty kids in their classroom going crazy.
[SPEAKER_01]: You're just trying to take care of them, trying to make enough money to feed your family and maybe even lay up and inheritance for your children's children.
[SPEAKER_01]: What does this, these truths about the glory of Jesus?
[SPEAKER_01]: How does that help us as Christians?
[SPEAKER_01]: Is this just between God the Father and God the Son and we can be happy for them?
[SPEAKER_01]: But it has no meaning for us.
[SPEAKER_01]: Is that the case?
[SPEAKER_01]: I'm afraid that too often we read and hear the scriptures with that kind of thinking that we're happy for Jesus.
[SPEAKER_01]: I'm happy for God.
[SPEAKER_01]: I'm happy for those Old Testament saints that got to see Him or experience Him.
[SPEAKER_01]: I'm happy for the disciples.
[SPEAKER_01]: We sometimes don't see and don't recognize what Jesus has for us with these statements of truth.
[SPEAKER_01]: So what does Jesus have for us in telling us that the Father's mission is to glorify His Son over all creation?
[SPEAKER_01]: How does Jesus want this to change the way we think and live this coming week?
[SPEAKER_01]: I believe the goal of the Father
[SPEAKER_01]: and giving these words to his son is that you, Christian, would hope in Jesus.
[SPEAKER_01]: He's aiming at your hope.
[SPEAKER_01]: What are you hoping in, Christian, in a world that is filled with brokenness and evil?
[SPEAKER_01]: What are you hoping in?
[SPEAKER_01]: It cannot be insurance policies,
[SPEAKER_01]: that your children will love you and obey you, that your wife will just adore you, that your husband will always provide for you and be understanding with you the way that you really want.
[SPEAKER_01]: It cannot be in that.
[SPEAKER_01]: Those are gifts from God if you have them, but your hope cannot be in them for they all will fail one day.
[SPEAKER_01]: So I believe the Father by giving His Son these words, the statements of fact of truth is aiming at your heart, at your hope, at your confidence.
[SPEAKER_01]: And He is saying, hope in my Son, His name is Jesus.
[SPEAKER_01]: The truth of the authority of Jesus to give eternal life
[SPEAKER_01]: to the people the Father has given Him, revealed in the works and words of Jesus, is meant to fill your soul with hope in the name of Jesus.
[SPEAKER_01]: And as you hope in Jesus, the promise is that you will begin to experience the joy of being united to the eternal God.
[SPEAKER_01]: Look with me at verses twelve through thirteen.
[SPEAKER_01]: Jesus says, while I was with them, I kept them in your name, which you have given me.
[SPEAKER_01]: I have guarded them.
[SPEAKER_01]: He's speaking about how he guarded, there's eleven disciples who are given to him by the Father.
[SPEAKER_01]: He says, and not one of them has been lost except the son of destruction.
[SPEAKER_01]: He's speaking of Judas, the betrayer, that the scripture might be fulfilled
[SPEAKER_01]: That was part of the plan of God.
[SPEAKER_01]: He was not one of the people written in the book, in the Lamb's book of life since before the foundation of the world.
[SPEAKER_01]: Verse thirteen, but now I am coming to you and these things I speak in the world in our hearing and written for our hope.
[SPEAKER_01]: He says, these things I speak in the world that they may have my joy
[SPEAKER_01]: fulfilled in themselves.
[SPEAKER_01]: Jesus has spoken truth to us.
[SPEAKER_01]: Truths we are meant to hope in.
[SPEAKER_01]: And as we hope in the name of Jesus and all he is and all he has been for us, we will be kept and united to the Father, the Holy Almighty, God who is the Lord.
[SPEAKER_01]: who is the source of eternal joy.
[SPEAKER_01]: God, the Father is the source of all eternal joy, and Jesus Christ is His fountain pouring it out on mankind, and now through the hope, the power of the Holy Spirit, which He has given to us.
[SPEAKER_01]: And the call from God, the Father, is, think on my Son, consider my Son
[SPEAKER_01]: hope in Him and experience the eternal joys of God.
[SPEAKER_01]: Let's pray together.
[SPEAKER_01]: Heavenly Father, thank you again for your Son.
[SPEAKER_01]: Thank you that you have provided for us all things we need for life and for Godliness.
[SPEAKER_01]: Thank you, that Jesus Christ through His life and death and resurrection, the sentient in coming again, has provided everything necessary for our joy.
[SPEAKER_01]: We may have days where we are not happy in this life, where we don't feel nice at Lord.
[SPEAKER_01]: If our confidence is in Jesus and we're hoping in Him,
[SPEAKER_01]: Knowing and believing the truth, he has spoken to us, Lord, then our joy, our eternal kind of joy, cannot be shaken by the troubles of this life.
[SPEAKER_01]: That is something the world has never tasted.
[SPEAKER_01]: And so Lord, may we live as people of hope, and may the world see our hope, and may they come asking, what is the reason for the hope within you?
[SPEAKER_01]: in my art joy in God overflowed to many in Jesus' name.
[SPEAKER_01]: Amen.