You pick up your Bible and wonder, is there more here than meets the eye?
Is there something here for me? I mean, it's just words printed on paper, right? Well, it may look like just print on a page, but it's more than ink. Join us for the next half hour as we explore God's Word together, as we learn how to explore it on our own, as we ask God to meet us there in its pages.
Welcome to More Than Ink. Hey, if you knew you were going to die tomorrow, how would you pray tonight? I'm really not too sure, actually. And what would you say to the people you love most in the whole world?
Well, I tell them I love them for sure, but what else? Certainly. What else? Let's find out today in John 17 on More Than Ink. Well, welcome to our dining room table again. This is Jim.
And I'm Dorothy. Again, we're just delighted that you're with us. We have come to what I consider like the crown jewel of the New Testament.
It's probably debatable from a lot of people, but it's a big deal. Yeah. Yeah, John 17. So John 17, we're going to look at this really famous prayer that Jesus prays, not just for the apostles, but for us by extension, it turns out. Actually, explicitly. Oh, specifically.
Yeah, by extension. And you know, when you think about the prayers of Jesus, you know, I think back to you, what are the other times in the New Testament that I've heard that we get to overhear Jesus praying? You know, I remember he stands outside the tomb of Lazarus and he prays.
That's pretty interesting. And in fact, he says, I'm praying out loud like this for the benefit of the people hearing me. We know about his prayer in the garden. Well, and there are a couple of other times when we get little tiny snippets of prayer, but we have a couple of times when he was teaching on prayer. Teaching on prayer. When the disciples asked him to teach us to pray. He says, well, when you pray, pray this way.
Don't just heap out meaningless phrases. Pray like this. And that's where the Lord's prayer comes from and stuff like that. It's interesting that I see in some of my studies, it has just dawned on me that he himself is actually praying along the pattern that he laid out for us to pray. And so maybe we'll talk about that as the conversation opens.
Yeah, yeah, I hope so. Well, so we are in John 17. Get your Bibles open and you can follow with us. And this is an extraordinary view into not only who Jesus is, but his relationship with us, but really who Jesus is. And he's praying out loud so we can understand more fully. So this is, by the way, just to remind you of the narrative, this is just before he gets arrested. I mean like just breaths before he gets arrested. So this is the last really deeply substantive thing the apostles were hearing until resurrection.
Well, and we probably need to remember, too, that it doesn't happen in isolation. That this is the culmination of an entire evening of very carefully planned conversation on his part. He had done some things very specifically. They had celebrated the Passover. He had washed their feet. And then he had talked with them very specifically about lots of things, the Holy Spirit coming, about them serving one another, loving one another, about this new relationship that they were going to enter with the Father.
So this doesn't happen by itself. And so when we come to approach this passage, we really need to have that in mind. And that's why we asked you last week to read the previous chapters over again so that that would be fresh in your mind because all of those things that he had talked with him about come together in this prayer. Yeah, exactly. And as you recall, he sort of freaked him out by saying, I'm going away.
I'm coming back for a while. He said it several times. He said it several times. And it really completely redefined the relationship with God.
And this really puts a cap on that discussion. So do you want to start in on verse 1 of chapter 17? Sure, but we probably need to say, verse 17 begins when Jesus had spoken these words.
Well, what words? Well, immediately prior to this is when he had said, I've spoken these things to you that you may have peace in the world. You'll have tribulation, but take courage.
I've overcome the world. And this relationship with the world is going to figure prominently in this prayer. So John says, so when he 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. And it's interesting to me that John doesn't say, so we all stood around in a circle and prayed. He doesn't set this apart from the conversation in any way. He just moves without a breath into prayer.
Okay, you want me to read on? Father, the hour has come. Glorify your son that the son may glorify you. Since you've given him authority over all flesh to give eternal life to all whom you've given him. And this is eternal life, that they know you, the only true God and Jesus Christ whom you've sent. I glorified you on earth having accomplished the work that you gave me to do.
And now Father, glorify me in your own presence with the glory that I had with you before the world existed. Wow. Stop there. We got to stop there. So I notice a repeated word in here.
Yeah, you think? We need to go back and remind ourselves what it means. It's the G word. Glory, glory, glory. Glory, glory, glory. And so what is that all about? What is glorifying all about? And the simplistic way we always said it before is to take something, like in this case the nature of who God is, and you just make it large. I call it billboarding.
It's taking something and just making it large. Broadcasting it as big as you can be. Just glorify it. It's big and it's there and it's not hidden and it's just right out in open view.
And recognize it for what it really is. For who it really is. So when he says glorify me, let it be fully recognized who you are and who I am.
Yeah, so it does beg the question. So what is it that we are going to know in a public, public, public way because of what's going to happen pretty soon here with the crucifixion? And Jesus is saying this is going to be made known publicly.
A big public, hello, glorify. So what exactly is it about the nature of God and the nature of Jesus? That's going to be glorified in this whole action of the crucifixion. And that begs, that's the big question. Yeah.
That's the big question. Yeah, because the glory of who God is, the greatest demonstration of that glory is going to be at the cross and then in the resurrection, right? That this God, the God who is, is the one who sacrifices himself for those he loves. That is the glory that Jesus has in mind here. And that just renders me speechless.
Well it's consistent. You know, later in John's little letters he'll say that God is love. It's this essential nature. And what's the best, what's the best way to understand the dimensions of God's love? Well look at the sacrifice of his son because God so loved the world that he gave his son. So yeah, definitely right here in the sacrifice of Jesus you're going to see the character of God, God is love writ large and lifted up for everyone to, I mean literally lifted up like a billboard for everyone to see.
Unmistakably so and that's how God's going to be glorified through glorifying the son. And that's actually how John had opened his account of this whole evening. If you remember back in chapter 13 John had said, now before the feast of the Passover, Jesus, knowing that his hour had come, well that's how this part begins.
The hour, it's the hour, right? That means it's imminent. Knowing that the hour had come that he should depart out of this world to the Father, having loved his own who were in the world, he loved them to the uttermost.
So that's how John sets up the whole evening and so it's very clear that that idea is still in his mind. This is imminent. These are last words. Yeah and you remember back in chapter 2 of the turning of the water into wine, he said even in passing right there my hour hasn't come yet. It's like I can't out exactly who I am but boom, here we are, that hour has come. Now we're not holding back glorifying who God is, who Jesus is, what the whole purpose of this is all about. What do you make of that line in verse 2 about eternal life? We have messed up ideas about what eternal life is and Jesus defines it for us. Well you know it's interesting, he says this is eternal life that they may know you, the only true God and Jesus Christ whom you sent, Jesus me, the anointed, appointed one sent by you, your only authorized representative. Well you want to know who God is, look at me.
Well that's just consistent with everything he had said all along, right? I am the way, I am the truth, I'm the life, I am, period, boom, right back in John 8. Yeah and I always think it's fascinating that people have these weird concepts of what eternal life is. Is it like heaven with golden streets and infinite food, I mean what is eternal life and Jesus is stating really quite equivocally here if you want to know what eternal life is it's knowing God himself and Jesus' purpose in coming is to make known who God is.
The entire package of why Jesus came was to give glory, to make known in a big way who God is because in that relationship we find life and it's not anything else, in that relationship we find life. Okay and he had talked back in chapter 5 about the authority that he has to give life and those who believe in his name as the son of God pass out of judgment into life. So this entrance into eternal life isn't just something that starts after we die and goes on forever, we enter it now, as he said in John 10, abundantly. Well you enter it as soon as you enter into relationship. If it is a relationship with God then it starts now. And so it is unlimited life that extends in every direction, it is not bounded by time.
Yeah, exactly. So it makes me think a lot of people on their deathbed ask themselves was this all there was to it, was there more than this, what was the purpose of life and all that kind of stuff and really wonder if they've missed the big reason for things to be, where was life in all of this. And I think what kind of nags the back of our mind is we know that as we look back on our lives relationships seem to have the most life to them.
It wasn't money, it wasn't cars, it wasn't, you know it's relationships. And that's a big pointer to the fact, you know what, you will find life in relationship with God. He made us to know that, to know that relationship has tremendous value. So if you're looking for eternal life and you're looking for things that are just going to please you, you may not find what you're looking for.
What you need to do if you want to find life is find relationship and relationship with God. That's what you were made for and that's what Jesus is saying he was all about. And that's what Jesus came for.
That's what he came for. That's what he came to do to make the Father known. Right John begins his Gospel when he says, In him was life, you know life was the light of men. And a little later on in verse 14 he says, And the Word became flesh and dwelt among us and we saw his glory and he made God fully known in the flesh.
Right. So how do you find life? You find it in relationship with God. And Jesus is the one who makes that happen. Yeah, he's the one that makes it happen. And what he's going to do on the cross pays for the impediment that we emplace on ourselves because of our sin.
So but yeah, you want to find life? Find it in relationship with him. Well and he says, I glorify you on earth Father having accomplished the work that you gave me to do. Well, you know, we like to think of his work as going to the cross which of course it was.
But he's speaking past tense here. Up to that, what had he already accomplished? He had made the Father fully known through his everything he ever said was at the direction of the Father. Everything he ever did was at the direction of the Father. Every miracle, every work, every relationship expressed the reality of the Father. So he says, I've made you as fully known as it is humanly possible to do. In fact, that's exactly, that's his summary statement when we get to verse 6 here. I mean, what was his mission accomplished?
That was his mission accomplished. I manifested you. Yeah, yeah.
What do you make before we get into that though? Very at the very end of verse 5, he says, you know, Father glorify me in your own presence with the glory that I had with you before the world existed. Isn't that a fascinating phrase? The glory I had with you before the world existed. What? Boy, that's a good question. We could noodle on this one for hours.
For hours. Well, you know, Paul says in Philippians 2 that he laid aside his glory in some measure. He didn't stop being who he always was and always had been. But he laid aside the claiming of the rights and privileges associated with that in order to become flesh to serve us in our salvation. So he's saying, okay, Father, I've done what you sent me to do.
Bring me home. Yeah. So in a real sense, what he's going back to as he goes back to heaven is a glory. It's a broadcasting of who God is that was even somewhat cloaked when he came on earth and now he's going back to that.
So it's manifest big time. It's what the angels respond to in heaven when they look at God and they see his full glory. Jesus says, I'm going back to that. But yeah, he existed before the world existed.
How about that? Well, that's how John had started the gospel. That's right. That's right. And the word was with God and the word was God.
So make no mistake about who this guy is. Did Jesus only exist once he was born Mary and Joseph? No. He existed before the world was created.
He didn't become the son when he was born as a human. Right. Exactly.
Yeah. Well, let's go on to verse six because this is where he really does state his mission accomplished statement, right? This is what I got done. So he recounts, so I'll just read this verse in six. I have manifested your name to the people who you gave me out of the world. Yours they were and you gave them to me and they have kept your word and now they know that everything that you have given me is from you. 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.
Well, let's just stop right there for a second. So he's recounting what he did in his ministry. Right. Right. But it's what he says about the disciples here that's important.
You know, they're listening. Yeah. Right. So it's what you feel when somebody you love is praying for you in a very intensely personal way. You feel loved. You feel validated.
You feel lifted up and, you know, they had heard Jesus pray lots of times and heard him teach about praying, but they had probably never heard him pray like this. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. And the fact that I like this part about the ones you gave me out of the world.
Because they were and you gave them to me. Again, we come down to this thing. If Jesus is not God in some way, then this is blasphemous, what he's talking about here. But he is. I mean, we're looking at the Trinity in full view here when he says even that very same thing. And then he goes further and emphasizes that unity of the Trinity in seven, you know, that now they know that everything that you've given me is from you.
So well, that's blasphemous if he isn't equal with God in that particular sense, even his words in verse eight. So we see this really strong unity as part of the Trinity right here. Well, and it's interesting that here in verse eight when he says the words that you gave me, we've talked about this before, that's that Greek word rhema, which means the concrete reality behind the spoken word.
Right? The thing that the word is about. He said, I've given them that concrete reality that you gave to me. They received it. They came to know it. They recognized it. They bit down on that and got it. Yeah.
Is what he's saying there. Well, and they've kept your word, he said in six, that where we talked about so many times about it's really a watchful treasuring kind of thing. You know, they heard it, but they just didn't go in one ear and out the other.
They actually caught it and kept it and treasured it and observed it and carefully watched it. Well, if you remember back in chapter six when Jesus had turned to them and said, who do you say I am? Peter said, well, or he said, I guess, are you going away too?
Because lots of people had left at that point. And Peter says, Lord, where else shall we go? You have the words of eternal life.
Right. You've got the words. And so that's where we are. And because of that word, he says at the end of that verse eight, they've come to believe that I came from you. I came from you, God.
I'm not from this place. And they actually get that. They get I've come from heaven itself. And that carries with it the whole idea that the one who is sent carries the authority, the message, the actual concrete reality of the one who sent him. Yeah. Yeah, that's exactly right. As the perfect emissary of the Father.
You're the only authorized. Right. And more, I mean, in terms of identity. So that's his mission accomplished in six through eight. That's what I got done.
And as a result of that, they know who I am, and they've embraced your word. I mean, that's astonishing. He got it done.
So you want to push on into nine? Yeah. He says, I'm praying for them. I'm not praying for the world, but for those whom you've given me, for their yours, and all mine are yours, and yours are mine, and I'm glorified in them. And I'm no longer in the world, but they are in the world.
They are. I'm coming to you. Holy Father, keep them in your name, which you've given me, that they may be one, even as we are one. While I was with them, I kept them in your name, which you've given me.
I've guarded them, and not one of them has been lost except the son of destruction that the scripture might be fulfilled. And now I'm coming to you, and these things I speak in the world, that they may have my joy fulfilled in themselves. Wow. Oh. So now he's praying for them explicitly. I mean, he said, I'm praying for these guys.
Not praying for everybody. Right. But he's going to later.
He will later. So for right now, this is about them. Right, right. I'm praying for them. I'm praying for them, all those that are his that came from the Father. And the purpose he's praying is he's saying, look, I'm no longer going to be in the world, but they are.
They are going to be in the world for a while. I'm coming to the Father. So here's what we need to ask for, Jesus says.
Will you keep them in the same way that I have kept them? And again, that's our favorite word, terreo, again. It's that watchful, carefully observing, carefully attend to, almost guarding in a sense. And Jesus has done that role, and now as he's leaving physically, he's saying, Father, will you do that role? But isn't it interesting here that he says, Holy Father. That's how he had taught them when they had said, teach us to pray. He said, now pray this way. Our Father in heaven, hallowed be your name, as a human being, God is utterly other than we are. And that's what holy means.
It's not just sinless. It means different from this place. So I'm leaving them in this place, but I'm praying to you, Father, who are not of this place. Yeah, because you're separated from this place. You're not touched by the evil that's here. You're pure.
You're different from that. So he's praying that the Father would keep them. And keep them in your name. In your name.
So what does that mean? Keep them in your name? We could talk about this for the rest of the time.
Yeah, that might be all the time we have, in fact. Well, you know, but a person's name communicates their identity, their fundamental character, who they are. So he says, Father, keep them in your name. What is God's name?
He's the I am, the one who is, who's with you, who rules over everything, who created everything. Keep them, Lord, identified as yours. Yeah. What I like to do when I think about name, too, is we, first, when we name children, we don't name them based on their characteristics. We name them based on an aunt or an uncle or whatever, you know?
Usually, you know. But for them, a name was always drawn out of a character quality. In fact, some cultures, they didn't even name their kids until their kids showed some kind of quality, and then you'd name them that.
You know, that was more recently done in Native American cultures here, too, you know, runs like the wind. I'll name him runs like the wind. So I mean, talking about someone's name, you're talking about the visible kind of label of their reputation and their characteristics. So in the name of is always a way of, I shorthand it to reputation.
You know, what's the collective reputation of who God is? That's his name. That's his name.
That's what he's known for. That's what people call him by. So if he actually is the basis of everything, then you call him I am, because he's the basis of everything. But to do it in his name, yeah, that means, you know, based on everything of who you are, God, this is what I'm doing. So you know, it's interesting that he prays, Father, keep them in your name, the name you've given me. Right. And just an hour before, he had told them to pray in his name. In his name. Right. In the name the Father had given him, which is the same name as the Father.
That's right. Again, we're just, we're, we just keep smacking our heads up against this. The Trinity is not something we imagined or we figured out. It's simply who God has revealed himself to be.
And the fact that we can't figure it out, just indicates that he is, he is holy, he is other. Yep. Right.
He just says, this is who I am. Yeah, yeah. So if you... Okay, wait.
Okay. You know what? Because the second half of that sentence is like... Where?
Stops us in our tracks. Which verse? In verse 11, keep them in your name, which you've given me, that they may be one, even as we are one. Right. What? Right. This is the first time he uses this phrase, but it's going to show up from here on to the end of the prayer over and over and over again. The one, the one stuff?
One as we are one. Yeah. Oh my gosh. Yeah.
I almost can't get past this. Well, like you say, he's going to explain it a lot in a little bit here, so we can... He is. Yeah. But this is where he opens this idea, one as we are one. Right. That is a level of intimacy and relationship with God that they had not yet really grasped. Yeah. And really couldn't until the Holy Spirit came to indwell. Well, yeah. And I think it was natural for them to say, well, if Jesus is the Messiah and he's the Son of God, then of course there's a oneness between he and the Father, because they're the same God in that particular sense. But then to include us in that picture?
Or drawn in. That's just an amazing thing, that we're included in that picture, but only because the Holy Spirit then indwells us. And we are in that same, wow, we're in that same fellowship, in that sense. I mean, that's an astonishing thing.
That's really an astonishing thing, and he'll talk more about that before he finishes here. Well, we're running a little short on time. You got any last comments, like around verse 13 here, before we... Can we just finish on that and pick it up next week? Well, as he's praying for them, he says now, he just reemphasizes, now I'm coming to you.
I'm coming. I'm coming to you, but these things I speak in the world, that they may have my joy fulfilled in themselves. Right. He had talked about joy throughout the evening, right, I want my joy to be in you. What gave him tremendous fundamental joy, well Hebrews says, for the joy set before him, he endured the cross. Endured the cross. The cross is clearly in view here, saying they need to get a grip on the fact that this joy goes before, comes behind, and transcends human experience. It's bigger and more concrete, I keep using that word, than your emotional experience. Well, yeah, and I like how he doesn't just say that they may have joy, but that this joy might be fulfilled, and that's a very applicable word. It means it's really going to gain some traction in their lives. It will be fulfilled.
Completed. Whole. Yeah, and it's, again, it's this initial shock of the death of Jesus, that maybe the plan is off, or maybe something accidental happened, and they'll come back to find out at the resurrection that, no, the plan is still in force, everything is going according to plan. Great joy, because now the sacrifice lamb has died and is raised again, and now there's an opportunity for life.
That's, the plan is on, and it's beautiful, and it's exactly what God had purposed from the very beginning, and it will be fulfilled in them. And he had told them all of that, over and over and over again. Yeah, they're slow like us. But it just didn't penetrate.
It just didn't penetrate. Yeah, they're slow like us, but it's just a marvelous thing, so I speak these things while I'm in the world, so that my joy may be fulfilled in them, fulfilled in them. And you have to consider the fact that as they went across the road after that, they talked about the great joy of coming to God through the sacrifice of Jesus. So as we're wrapping up here, I just need to say that we have now posted on the website a Bible study on this very chapter that I wrote last year that grew out of a couple of years of fairly intense study of this chapter. And so it's there, you can download it, print it, and work your way through it. And it's hard work, but it will lead you to approach this prayer in a very accessible way.
And so I would encourage you to check that out. Yeah, take a look at that, and we'll move on from there. So next week, we'll come back, back into John 17. We could really... We need to do like four.
Yeah, we might have to, in fact, we might have to do even a summary on 17, because we pick up the narrative in 18 and Jesus is arrested, but we could sit here in 17 forever. So anyway, glad you're with us, and glad you're listening to the words of Jesus about his apostles and about us. I'm Jim.
And I'm Dorothy. And we're glad you're with us on More Than Ink, bye. More Than Ink is a production of Main Street Church of Brigham City, and is solely responsible for its content. To contact us with your questions or comments, just go to our website, morethanink.org. We're good, let's see. I think that's a little better.
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