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That's connectwithskip.com. Now, let's get started with today's message from Pastor Skip Heitzig. Psalm 124, I believe. It says, I lift my eyes up to you, to you whose throne is in heaven. The idea of lifting up one's eyes is simply a recognition that I'm speaking to someone who's above all, who reigns over all, whose throne is in heaven, who sees everything going on on the earth and in my life.
So I'm recognizing authority by looking up. That's one of the postures in prayer. What's interesting is the Bible doesn't speak about closing your eyes and folding your hands, but what do we do? Close our eyes, bow our heads, fold our hands. The Bible speaks about lifting your eyes, the Bible speaks about kneeling, the Bible speaks about laying flat down, bowing before the Lord, dancing before the Lord, and it's funny that when we choose a posture for prayer, we decide we're going to pick one that's not a biblical one, and we'll go with that one. I would suggest you might want to start incorporating what you actually read is a posture for prayer in the Bible and just see how that works out. Lifting up of hands, that's a commandment in the Bible. Lifting up holy hands, without wrath and doubting, Paul said. Or getting on your knees and showing that you have humility before the Lord. So Jesus lifts up his eyes, it's one of the postures of prayer, recognizing God is in heaven on the throne over all. But something else, he also lifted up his voice, not just his eyes. He prayed out loud.
You say, Skip, how do you know that? Well, it's recorded, right? The disciples wrote it down, they had to hear it in order to record it.
Now you might say, well, you may be pushing it here. Jesus didn't always pray out loud. He may have prayed on this occasion because he's walking with his disciples, giving them instruction. Now he wants them to hear in an instructive way how he talks to the Father.
Maybe, but I doubt it. I doubt it because when he gets to the Garden of Gethsemane, he goes off by himself to pray a stone's throw, the Bible says. And the disciples were able to hear what he said and write that down. When Jesus said with a loud voice, from a stone's throw, they heard it. Father, if it's possible, let this cup pass from me. So Jesus didn't just lift up his eyes, he lifted up his voice. He prayed aloud.
I've shared with you this before, and I'm just going to recommend it to when you pray, pray verbally, pray out loud, lift up your voice. And here's why. And I know you say, well, people are going to think I'm nuts. Well, yet perhaps, in the wrong context, I mean, if you are taking orders at Taco Bell and you're talking out loud when you should be saying thank you, what else would you like?
Would you like a Coke with that? Oh, Heavenly Father, you can freak some people out. But I guarantee you, you can pray out loud when you're driving in your car.
I see people bopping and weaving and singing all the time and talking on their cell phone all the time out loud. I think you can pray out loud in your car. I like to take a walk and pray out loud. And the reason I do is because when I pray silently, I don't know about you, but I easily get distracted in prayer. I mean, I've caught myself stopping in the middle of a sentence when I pray silently and getting up and doing something I remembered to do that I've forgotten to do. It's amazing how you remember things that need to be done when you're talking to God. So you pray out loud.
It's a good habit to get into. Jesus did it and His disciples heard it and they recorded it. And He said, Father, the hour has come. Isn't that a familiar phrase?
It should be by now. Six times, as mentioned in this book alone, Jesus kept talking about His hour. At the wedding feast at Cana of Galilee, His mother said, hey, do this trick. He said, woman, my hour has not yet come. They tried to seize Him in the temple, but He said, it said, but His hour had not yet come. All of that, all of those are references to this time, this hour, where He's going to the cross.
This is why He came. And that's why it is worded this way. Glorify your Son, that your Son also may glorify you, as you have given Him authority over all flesh, that He should give eternal life to as many as you have given Him. And this, verse 3, this is eternal life, that they may know you, the only true God and Jesus Christ whom you have sent. Whenever you see that phrase, eternal life or everlasting life, it is typically speaking of not just longevity, not just an ongoing existence, but rather a quality of life. It's not quantity of life, though it is that, it certainly is that.
But when Jesus especially uses the phrase, He's speaking of a quality along with a quantity. Because listen, everybody in the world has eternal life. If you look at it just as longevity, everybody will live forever and ever and ever.
They'll never cease to exist. But I will tell you this, the quality of life from one person to another will be vastly different. The difference between an existence apart from God in hell versus with God in heaven, well, hard to even compare the quality. Everybody will have longevity, thus quantity, but not everybody will have the quality. Jesus uses the phrase, eternal life, eionios zoe in Greek, which means age-abiding life.
It's a quality that begins now and goes on and on and on and on and on. And what is eternal life? What is this age-abiding life? That includes, by the way, abundant life, John chapter 10. I've come that you might have life and have it abundantly. It's knowing God.
It's having a relationship with the living God through His Son, Jesus Christ. This is eternal life that they may know you, the only true God and Jesus Christ whom you have sent. I have glorified you on the earth. I have finished the work which you have given me to do. And now, and now, oh Father, glorify me, watch this, together with yourself, with the glory which I had with you before the world was. By now, after 33 years on this earth, with all that Jesus has experienced, He is ready to go back home. It's like He can taste it.
The glory that I once had with you before the Philippians 2 experience of being emptied, pouring Himself out to the last drop, there was a glory that Jesus shared with the Father. It's something we can only imagine. The closest I've come to it are the times that I have flown into Calcutta or Bombay, India, Mumbai, India, and I visited the slums of that city. Nothing quite like the slums of those two cities. There's a certain kind of squalor that is in those places that I've not seen anywhere on the earth. And the first clue that you get is on the approach of the airplane itself. As the plane begins to put down its landing gear and you're in Mumbai airspace, even from the aircraft, I have smelled the squalor on the ground. And I go, what is that smell? And I go, oh, that's the city I'm flying into. And then to walk through those streets and see the mud and the plastic sheeting and the pieces of wood and trash that are used for little hovels and pieces of tin to make a roof.
And just the smell and the sight, it is an assault on all of your senses. And I remember having this thought as I'm walking through. This is only my experience for a few hours, a few days. And I remember having this experience for a few hours, a few days. These folks live with this day in and day out. So infinitely more, again, you can only imagine leaving the glorious environment of heaven to humble yourself to be born in a feeding trough in Bethlehem and to grow up in Nazareth and to grow up in a poor family from knowing heaven.
Talk about a cross-cultural experience. Jesus had the ultimate and He came down to this earth and He lived in the environment. Not only that, but He had to suffer through all of the rejection of the very people He made to represent Him, the nation of Israel, the people of the earth.
He came to His own and His own received Him not. And He's facing the cross. He knows what that's going to be like. So He goes, oh, Father, the hour has come. Glorify Me with the glory that we had together that I shared with you before the world was. Now He's getting in touch with what it's going to be like to go back home. That's His prayer.
By the way, here's just a thought. Jesus has a few hours to live, right? And now He's praying to the Father.
It's the longest recorded prayer. What does the Son of God have to say to His Father in the last hours of His life? What is so important that would be on His heart?
Because I think that's a very important thing to note. Because I would ask you, if you knew you had a few hours to live, what would you be asking God for? What would you be praying for? I know honestly, if I know I'm going to die in a few hours, I might be praying, Lord, get me out of this. Your guts.
Stop this from happening. Deliver me from this hour of suffering and pain. You're listening to Connect with Skip Heitzig. Before we get back to Skip's teaching, starting the year with a structured Bible study can shape your spiritual journey for the months ahead and help align your life with God's truth. We want to help you do that with Pastor Skip's book, The Bible from 30,000 Feet and Companion Workbook. Journey through the Bible from Genesis to Revelation, gaining a deep panoramic understanding of God's word that helps you understand the big picture of scripture with greater clarity. These resources are our thanks for your gift of at least $50 today to help share biblical teaching with more people around the world through Connect with Skip Heitzig.
Go to connectwithskip.com slash offer or call 800-922-1888 and request your copies when you give at least $50 today to reach people around the world through Connect with Skip Heitzig. Let's continue with today's teaching with Pastor Skip. What's on Jesus' mind, what's on Jesus' heart, what comes from his lips are three things. He prays for himself.
You just read it, verses one through five. He then prays for his disciples, his closest followers, verses six through 19, and then he prays for you, verse 20 through 26. That's how the prayer is outlined. So in this hour of need, Jesus prays for himself and he prays that the glory would be restored, the glory that he once had with the Father before the world was. Now, I'm going to ask you a rhetorical question.
You might even say a dumb question. Was Jesus' prayer answered? Was his prayer answered by the Father?
Oh, of course it was. When Paul wrote the book of Philippians and said he humbled himself, he emptied himself, he became a man, he became a bondservant, wherefore, right after that, God has highly exalted him and given him the name that is above every name, that at the name of Jesus every knee will bow and every tongue will confess. God has done that, Paul said.
So when Stephen is dying the martyr's death and the stones are pelting his body just before he dies, remember what he said? He goes, look, I see heaven opened and Jesus standing at the right hand of God. He saw him in his exalted place. His prayer was answered.
Now he prays for his own. I have manifested your name to the men whom you have given me out of the world. They were yours and you gave them to me and they have kept your word.
Did you see how that's phrased? Have you ever thought of yourself as a love gift given by God, the Father, to Jesus, the Son? Father, you have given them to me. When you received Christ, what happened?
I know what you're going to say. You're going to say, well, when I received Christ, I gave my life to Jesus. True, you did.
But something else happened. At the moment you gave your life to Jesus, the Father gave you to Jesus as a love gift. He said, Skip belongs to you, Jesus.
You paid the price. He's yours. He's my gift to you. I want to share that because have you ever had people scorn you and they think, who do you think you are? What do you think you are? God's gift to the world? You answer them and tell them, no, I don't think I'm God's gift to the world, but I know that I'm God's gift to Jesus.
Now, they're going to look at you like you think you're something you're not, but that is the truth, baby Ruth. God gave you to Jesus as a love gift. Now, what we're getting into here, and I don't want to belabor it because we've done it on a number of occasions, but we're getting into the divine mysteries of sovereign election, and divine predestination versus human volition.
You know what that means, right? Where God has selected you, chosen you in Christ before the foundation of the world. But at the same time, you had something to do with it.
You weren't an innocent bystander just being swept up. You chose to follow Jesus. Salvation is a combination of God's pre-choice and your choice in real time. He chose you in Christ before the foundation of the world. John 15, remember what Jesus said, you didn't choose me, but I chose you. Even though we read that they chose to follow Him. They made the decision to leave their nets and follow Jesus.
It was their choice. Let me just, without getting too much in depth and losing our time altogether, you will find that the Lord Jesus will often in even a verse, one verse, combine both truths that you are picked before the foundation of the world and that you chose to follow Christ. You'll have references where the Bible gives the command, repent and believe the gospel, or come to me all you who labor and are heavy laden, or if any man thirsts, let him come to me and drink.
He who believes in me out of his innermost being will flow rivers of living water. All of those are appeals to your personal choice, your human volition. At the same time, and sometimes in the same verse, it will say that God picked you, God gave you to the Son, it was all pre-done, pre-arranged.
And so you kind of want to scratch your head or find somebody to argue with. Let me just suggest that you don't, because we've got enough of that going on. The Calvinist will put all of his eggs on that God chose you. You're sovereignly predestined and pre-elected.
The Arminian will put all of his eggs on. You have to make a choice and it's your decision. And the thing is, both are true. And can I just say what Jesus sought to harmonize, we dare not polarize.
What God has joined together, as the preacher says at the wedding, let no man separate. And both of those truths are truths. He selected you before you were a twinkle in your daddy's eye. But then there came a time where God appealed to your choice and you said yes to him.
And both are evident in the scripture. So you can argue with it, you can wrangle over it. Can I just suggest you start enjoying it? Yeah, I remember being in school when they picked teams, and I was always, almost always, the last person people want to pick. I wasn't like star athlete, oh, your skips on my team.
It's like, they'll get to me, but they'll get all the good guys first. What I am told in the Bible, over and over again, is that he picked me and you to be on his team. And I read the end of the book, by the way, his team wins. So I'm just going to enjoy it. If you want to wrangle over it and argue about it, have fun.
Just don't bring me into it. I'd rather enjoy it while you argue about it. How's that? I'm going to tell you what I'm going to do enjoy it while you argue about it.
How's that? Now they have known, verse seven, that all things which you have given me are from you. For I have given to them the words which you have given me, and they have received them, and have known surely that I came forth from you, and they believed that you sent me. Jesus said, I gave them your words. And I always feel that that is what spiritual leaders, pastors, need to do. Give God's word.
Skip, why do you always have a Bible study when you have a meeting at Calvary? Because Romans 10, faith comes by hearing and hearing by the word of God. You want to grow in your faith? If you want to grow in your faith, don't close your Bible and pray for faith. You open your Bible and develop your faith.
That's how it comes. The more you expose yourself to it, and by God's grace implement it, you'll be changed from glory to glory. So we receive his words. He says, verse nine, I pray for them. I do not pray for the world but for those whom you have given me, for they are yours. And all mine are yours and yours are mine, and I am glorified in them. I am no longer in the world, but these are in the world.
And I come to you, Holy Father, keep through your name those whom you have given me, that they may be one as we are one. Two hundred and nine times in your New Testament, two hundred and nine times, the little phrase the world is used. The world.
In this passage, in nine verses of this passage, it's used 12 times. Jesus refers to the world. You're in the world but not of the world. I've taken you out of the world. I'm sending you out to the world. He uses this term the world.
What does that mean? It's the word cosmos in Greek, cosmos. We get the word cosmology from it. But there's a few different ways to look at the world. There's only one way he's referring to it.
Let me explain. Sometimes the Bible speaks of the world of creation, right? God created the world. The earth is the Lord's, the psalmist said, Psalm 24, and the fullness thereof, the world and all who dwell therein. He's speaking of the world of the earth, creation, the universe.
Well, that is not how it's used here. He's not speaking of it because, listen, the Bible says, do not love the world, neither the things that are in the world. So he's not saying, don't love your environment. Hate the plant when you go outside. Look at that tree and hate it.
Don't love it. That's not what it refers to when it says don't love the world. That's one way, the environment, the physical world. Sometimes the Bible refers to the world as the world of humanity, the world of men. And when Jesus said, or John 3 16, for God so loved the world, he was speaking of people of the world. Jesus didn't die for trees and fish.
He died for the humans of this world. God so loved the world. So when the Bible says, don't you love the world, he's not saying don't love people.
Don't love the environment, don't love people, whatever you do. Now that would be contrary to the gospel. There's a third way, and it is the most frequent use of that phrase, the world or cosmos. And it's very evident here. And that is the ordered system of worldly thinking and values around you.
That's how it is used. The word cosmos means an arranged order. So the world is the arranged order where Satan is called the God of this world, and there are human beings that are a part of the system that don't love God, that hate God, that don't love Christians, that don't love godly values. That is the world you and I are in and that is the world you and I are in and are not to love, right?
That system. So we are living in a physical world surrounded by a human world that is imbued with a spiritual worldview, okay? So for example, we used to have a, I don't even know if they have it on TV anymore, The Wide World of Sports. Is that still a show?
Okay, so that's like decades ago. But it doesn't mean there's a planet out in the galaxy that is called sports that is revolving around the sun. It's its own world. Now I know a lot of men would love to go to a planet like that, but it just means that it is an arranged system of sport values and people who love them and activities that are arranged around them. So when Jesus speaks of the world, I've taken you out of the world.
It's out of that world system. I've delivered you from that way of thinking, that way of living. Thanks for listening to Connect with Skip Heitzig. We hope you've been strengthened in your walk with Jesus by today's program.
Before we let you go, we want to remind you about this month's resources that will help you gain a deeper understanding of the sweeping story of scripture. Pastor Skip's book, The Bible from 30,000 Feet, and The Companion Workbook are our thanks for your support of Connect with Skip Heitzig today. Request your copies when you give $50 or more. Call 800-922-1888.
That's 800-922-1888. Or visit connectwithskip.com slash donate. And did you know that you can get a weekly devotional and other resources from Pastor Skip sent right to your email inbox? Simply visit connectwithskip.com and sign up for emails from Skip. Come back next time for more verse by verse teaching of God's Word here on Connect with Skip Heitzig. Connect with Skip Heitzig is a presentation of Connection Communications. Connecting you to God's never changing truth in ever changing times.
