Jesus Prayed, "Glorify Your Son"

Father, we ask that you would glorify your Son this morning in our presence. As we hear from your word given to us by your Son. Where else can we go? You have the words of eternal life.

We pray this in Christ's name. Amen. Well, last week, Last week, Pastor Milton. took us through Genesis 32 with Jacob's wrestling with the angel Godman on the south side of the fort of Jabuk.

his opponent, as Milton suggested last week, was likely Jesus Christ himself trying on his clothes of incarnation, as it were. This morning, we're gonna be looking at Christ after he had come and, and humbled himself. Actually wearing his incarnation clothes and in fact, wearing his funeral suit, so to speak, preparing for his death, burial, resurrection and soon to be glorified, a process wherein Christ would actually remain in his clothes, as it were, though glorified. This prayer in John 17 is before Christ wrestles with the Father in the Garden of Gethsemane.

we see here the son not so much wrestling with his father as much as we see him in a warm up pre-cross prayer embrace, so to speak. He is having a long hug with his father before he walks into the lion's den. As it were And so, what we're gonna do is we're actually going to begin a, a three-part series, I'm sorry, not seeing what I was expecting. That's OK.

we're gonna be beginning, a 3-part series. this is the first part, obviously. the next time I preach will be the second part. We're gonna be looking at the Lord's Prayer in 3 different sections this morning, looking at Christ's first prayer request.

so let's, let's just talk a little bit about some background, first of all, as we consider, this very important prayer. This is a prayer that Scottish reformer John Knox had read at his bedside before he died. He called it his first anchor. Martin Luther called this prayer, he said of it that it's plain and simple, but it is so deep, rich, and broad that no man can fathom it.

Some have called it the holy of holies in the New Testament. it is the longest prayer that we have recorded in the New Testament. It's not the longest prayer in the Bible, that would be Nehemiah 9. But even as the longest prayer in the New Testament, it only takes about 3.5 to 4 minutes to recite it, depending on your pacing.

And, and so we have this prayer that comes from the lips of Jesus Christ. Himself If you look at verse one, it starts off with the words Jesus spoke these words. And the phrase Jesus spoke these words either refers back to what he had said up to this point, or it may refer to the actual words of the prayer itself. But what we have is this prayer is actually in the middle of what's called the upper room discourse.

If you go all the way back to the beginning of chapter 13, Jesus is in the upper room, sharing the, the Lasts Supper with them. Remember, he washes the disciples' feet and he has this last supper and then he imparts to them many words of wisdom, and we see that all the way in chapter 13 to chapter 17. Right in the middle of this discourse, chapter 14, towards the end of the chapter verse 31, Jesus says, arise, let's go from here. So it seems like Jesus somewhere in the middle of the discourse begins to walk with his disciples from the lower part of the screen here where they would have had the Last Supper to the upper part of the screen where they are walking and traveling in the Garden of Gethsemane.

So this prayer happened somewhere perhaps between the upper room and on their path toward the garden of Gethsemane before the actual, his prayer in the garden with his disciples. And so what we're gonna do is, we would just want to suggest that the night before Christ's death on the cross, he prayed this prayer to the Father in the presence of the 11 disciples. Just imagine that. And so this morning, we're gonna examine Christ's all encompassing request as we see how the disciples redemption is wrapped up really in the Father and Son's mutual, mutual exchange of love.

And glory. And so let's read this text together. Starting in verse one, I'm gonna, we're gonna cover basically verses 1 to 8 is our plan. Saying, starting in verse one, Jesus spoke these words, lifted up his eyes to heaven and said, Father, the hour has come, 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 is the 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, oh Father, glorify me together with yourself with the glory which I had with you before the world was. I have manifested your name to the men whom you have given me. Out of the world. They were yours, you gave them to me, and they have kept your word.

Now they have known 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 have believed that you sent me. So we're entitling this particular sermon, Glorify your Son, because this is the first request that Christ makes. He really asked to be glorified and then from 9 to 19, he prays for his disciples and then from 20 to the end of the chapter, he prays for us, all of those that would believe through the disciples' words.

So, let's look at this first request.

We're basically gonna talk about a request. The results of their quest and a review of the reasons for their quest. And so let's look at Christ's request to his father. Right there in verse one, when Jesus spoke these words, he lift up his eyes to heaven and said, Father, the hour come, glorify your Son.

Again, this is part of the upper room discourse, probably Christ walking with his disciples, then he begins to pray. And notice that John records for us that Jesus spoke these words and lifted up his eyes to heaven. How did John know that Jesus lifted up his eyes to heaven rather than bowed his head? How does John even remember these words when it had been so many years since he had last heard them before pinning them in the Gospel of John?

Well, the reason that John knows the disposition of Christ is because John was there, right? He heard these words himself. As he records over in the book of First John, he says, that which was from the beginning, which we have heard, which we have seen, which our eyes have looked upon, our hands have handled concerning the word of life, he was one of the disciples, one of the eyewitnesses, and so that's why there's so much unique material in the book of John that John was actually there and he's filling in some of the details that some of the other gospels don't report for us.

But not only that, but Jesus tells us that he had promised to send the Holy Spirit, when the Holy Spirit came, the Holy Spirit would recall, help the disciples recall all these things to their remembrance.

If you look back at John 14:26, he mentions the Helper, 16:13 that the Holy Spirit would guide them into all truth. And so now, no doubt John is being aided in his recall of Christ's words. And so what we have before us is an eyewitness account. John is actually reporting what he heard and the Holy Spirit is aiding him to record it for us perfectly.

And that's just amazing. It should make us well up with thankfulness that we have such a prayer, the prayer of Jesus Christ for his disciples the night before his death, this should fill us with awe. And thankfulness. He begins this prayer by saying, Father, The hour has come.

And if you've read much through the Gospel of John, you'll remember that there's several times, 3 times to be exact, where Christ said that the hour has not come. When his mother had come to him, remember, remember when he was about ready to turn the, the water into wine and Mary comes and implies, hey, you should take care of this. He's like, Mother, my hour has not yet come. We see it again in chapter 7 and chapter 8 where Christ says it's recorded for us that his hour had not yet come.

But then in chapter 12, now we see the hour has come that the Son of Man should be glorified. Chapter 13 verse 1, his hour had come, chapter 16, the hour had come and now we see Jesus beginning this prayer with my hour has come or the hour. Has come. What does he mean the hour has come?

We'll turn back to chapter 12 just for a moment. Chapter 12 and verse 23. This is the first time where Jesus mentions this hour. He says the hour has come that the Son of Man should be glorified.

What does he mean? Most assuredly, I say to you, unless a grain of wheat falls into the ground and dies, it remains alone, but if it dies, it produces much grain. Jesus is speaking of his death, the hour of his death. He's now come to a place of dying and being glorified, being lifted up, by the Father.

So this hour, no doubt involves his, his death, but as we're gonna see in the rest of this prayer, it involves something that's been going on in the councils of the Trinity from all eternity. That from all eternity, the Father, Son, and Holy Spirit had covenanted to save a certain number of people, and there had been this agreement and so Christ, even pre-incarnate days in his wrestling with Jacob was looking forward to this hour, and then Christ was born in time looking forward to this hour.

And throughout his life and 3 years of ministry, finally, he gets to the night before his death, and he says, Father, the hour has come. We've been waiting for this for all of eternity, and now it is here.

We sense the, the incredible awesomeness and, and heaviness of this moment. But what does it mean when Jesus says he makes his request, glorify. Your son Glorify Your son. Well, in the previous context, we just read, it involves something to do with Christ's death.

that he would die. The word glory carries with it the idea of weight and light and exposure to give honor to, to shine light and give the magnitude of, to show the true dignity of an object. And so, he's actually asking the Father to reveal the honor and dignity of the Son. Lift up the son.

Before the eyes of his disciples and before the eyes of the world. Who could pray such a prayer but the Son of God Himself? If I were to stand before you guys this morning and open up this message in prayer and say, Father, glorify Mike Berry. You guys would think I was nuts.

And you guys would have every right to take away or defrock me as a pastor, right? but Jesus Christ can pray this legitimately, Father, glorify your Son because the Son does deserve the dignity and honor that is giving, being given to him by the Father. But notice that there's a result that Christ is expecting. So he, the prayer request is glorify me, but the intended result is this, that the Son, the Son states what assured result as the Father answers his prayer request, and that is the rest of this verse, that your Son may glorify you or that your Son also may glorify you.

Glorify me and if you do, as you answer this prayer, which is no doubt to be answered, what's gonna result is I'm going to glorify you. I am going to cause your dignity, Father, to be manifested. I'm gonna cause your character to be lifted up, light to be shown upon your name. I'm gonna draw attention to Your Majesty.

This is appropriate for the son. It's appropriate for the Father, but I wanna suggest to you that people were never made to be glorified. In this sense, we were never made to be lifted up in this sense to draw all men to ourselves, that, that people would look to us. In fact, I have a theory that when people take that honor unto themselves, it drives them mad.

Look at how many music and pop stars go crazy when they begin to accept the praise of mankind and don't deflect the praise back to their Creator. But even Christ is the God man, he asked to be lifted up and glorified, but as the Godman, the ultimate representative of humanity, humanity, he reflects glory back to the Father. And sets that example for us. But then he gives reasons for this request and intended result.

The son reviews the reasons for the request and certain result, that means absolutely certain result. Notice what he says in, in verse 2. As you have given authority over all flesh that he should give eternal life to as many as you have given him. See, some translations say for or since, which I think is a good, good translation.

Basically, what Jesus is doing here is he's saying, glorify me that I may glorify you. And here's the rationale, here's all the a review of the reasons as to why you should glorify me that I may glorify you. Which begs the question, why, why in the world does Jesus even have to tell the Father this stuff? Doesn't the Father know this already?

Doesn't the father know that he has given authority over to the son? And, and when you look at most of this prayer, these are all items that if the father wanted to, he could be like, Jesus, I know this. Tell me something I don't know. But this is part of the nature of prayer, is it not?

And it's part of the nature of, of, of communion within the Trinity is there's nothing that the Father, Son, and Holy Spirit cannot share with one another that they don't already know. So what's the purpose? The purpose is communion. The purpose is relationship.

There's a sharing of relational relationality with information that is already fully known. And so the Jesus is, is reciting things to the Father in prayer that he may commune with the Father. So again, let's, let's look at that, that verse again, for, as you have given authority over all flesh that he should give eternal life to as many as you have given him, what word do we see happening over and over and over again? It's given, give, given.

You've given him authority that he should give eternal life to as many as you have given him, and this word give gets repeated many, many times in this prayer. In fact, it's interesting, one of the definitions of love, that you can see this in, for instance, Miller Erick Erickson's theology, systematic theology, one of the definitions of the love of God is the eternal giving or sharing of himself with others. The eternal giving or sharing. And any, any time where you see God giving or sharing Himself, in the text of scripture, you really see God loving.

Remember, for God so loved the world that he was. gave His only begotten Son, giving and loving are the same thing within the eternal counsels of the Trinity. And so when Jesus is saying, you have given him authority, you have loved the Son by giving him authority over all flesh, and he is loving you by giving eternal life to as many as you have loved him with, in giving him these people. Now notice this, this giving exchange involves authority and, and giving of persons.

It says you have given him authority over all flesh. What does that mean? If you cross reference it down at verse 6, which we'll look at in a moment, it's all of the world, it's all humanity. And so Jesus has been given authority over all humanity, by the Father.

And then Jesus turns right around and he gives eternal life to as many as he had given him. So there's a subset of this humanity. You've given the Son authority over all flesh, and the Son gives eternal life to as many as you have given Him. And so there's a subset.

We get this same type of concept earlier in the book of John, when Jesus says in chapter 6, all that the Father gives me. Remember that chapter 6, verse 37. All that the Father gives me what will come to me. And the one who comes to me, I will know by no means cast out.

Verse 39 of that same chapter 6. This is the will of the Father who sent me, sending as an act of love, that all he has given me an act of love, I should lose nothing but raise it up at the last day. So there's those that have been given to the Son by the Father, they will come to him and Jesus will lose none of them. This concept of giving of individuals out of this bigger group of all flesh or out of the world, gets carried forward in the Book of Acts as the apostles go out and begin to preach the gospel, they are very aware of this exchange, this love exchange that has happened between the Father and the Son and the Spirit.

For instance, consider Acts 13. Acts 13, Paul and Barnabas were preaching the gospel to the Jews, but they were rejecting the gospel. And so then they began to turn and preach the gospel to the, the, the Greeks and notice their response in Acts 13:48. You can just listen or you can write this down.

Now, when the Gentiles heard this, they were glad and glorified the word of the Lord. They magnified, they, they, they lifted up the word of the Lord. And as many as had been appointed to eternal life believed. Notice the order there.

As many as had been elected or appointed to your eternal life believed. In other words, those who believed were the ones who had already been appointed to eternal life. Those who had been gifted to the Son by the Father were those who believed in Acts 13. We see the same concept in Acts 18.

Remember Paul has this direct divine revelation when he's in Corinth, they're going into Corinth, and it says in verse 9, now the Lord spoke to Paul in the night vision. Do not be afraid, but speak, do not keep silent, for I am with you. No one will attack you or hurt you. I have many people in this city.

He doesn't say I have everybody in this city. That's true that he does have authority over all flesh in Corinth, but when he says, I have many people in this city, he's speaking of, I have people in this city who have been given to me by the Father imp implied. Does that make sense? And so this idea fast forwards all throughout the book of Acts.

Back on the concept of Christ just having all authority in general, we see this also mentioned in chapter 3, verse 35, the Father loves the Son and is given what all things into his hand. Jesus, before he sends, is ascended and sends his disciples out, he says, all authority has been given to me in heaven and on earth. And so we serve a Christ who has authority over all flesh. Not only that, but Jesus has the power to give eternal life to everybody that the Father has given to him.

And we know from chapter 6, that Jesus will give eternal life to everybody who's been given to Him, and Jesus will lose no one. This is what causes John Gill, theologian John, John Gill to summarize this, this verse in this way. He says the persons on whom he confers this gift, that is Jesus Christ, are not all men. But such as the Father in the everlasting covenant has given to him as his people and portion, his spouse and children, his jewels and his treasure to be saved and enjoyed by him whom he has chosen and preserved in him and made his care and charge to these, and every one of these Christ gives this great blessing, nor shall any of them come short of it.

And it is for the sake of this that all creatures and things, all power in heaven and in earth are given to him. That's a mouthful. The Father has given Christ authority over all flesh, so that he could give eternal life to his own, to his bride, to his children. That's why the Father has given Christ authority over all flesh.

How does, how should that work its way out in our lives? Well, when we go out to pray and preach the gospel, guess what? We can say, Father, you have given authority to your son over all flesh. Everybody who lives here in Riverside is under your authority.

And we know that there are those likely who are in this city who have been given to your Son, and your Son is going to give them eternal life, and we get to go out and find them. And participate in something you've planned from eternity past. This is not a hope so. This is not a might happen.

This is a guarantee, that this salvation has been wrought. And then we just consider ourselves, if you've embraced Christ as your savior, you have come to Him because you are a intra-rinitarian love pond between the Father and the Son. You are a glory trophy. The Father has said, Christ, here is a trophy.

And Jesus says, I'm giving that person eternal life and I'm giving them back to you. And there's this in Trinitarian love thing that's happening between the Father and Son as there's this exchange that has happened in the eternal decrees. Mind blowing. This brings us back.

To a, to, it, it, more reasons for this request and result. Notice what it says in verse 3. And this is eternal life that they may know you. What is eternal life?

That they may know you. The only true God. And Jesus Christ, whom you have sent. So he's just said the Son is going to give to eternal life, to as many as you have given him.

By the way, what is eternal life? Here's eternal life. That they may know you, not just know about you, like we know George Washington is the first president of the United States, that they may know you relationally, and that they may know that you are the only true God, you are the sole God, you are the personal living God. There is no other God.

There are no polytheistic gods, there are no pantheistic gods, there is no God of nature, there's no Mother Nature. You are the only true God and this is eternal life that they may know that only true God. And Jesus Christ, whom you have sent. And that should make our jaw drop when Jesus says, there's the only true God, the Father and coordinative conjunction, and Jesus Christ, whom you have sent.

To have eternal life is to know the Father, but it is also equally to know the Son, which implies that the Father and the Son are co-equal in salvation. So Jesus saves His people from their sins. That's what Jesus means, Jehovah saves. Christ literally means the anointed one and so Christ is the one that is anointed with the measureless fullness of the Holy Ghost for the exercise of his saving offices.

Some people ask in this prayer, where's the Holy Spirit? Well, the Holy Spirit's right where he likes to be in the background, right? The Holy Spirit likes to lift up the Son and lift up the, the Father. You see the Holy Spirit mentioned all over the place in chapter 16.

When you get to this prayer, the only implication of the Holy Spirit is in the word Christ, which means anointed, which implies anointed by The Holy Spirit, the fullness. Jesus is the one who's walking in the fullness of the Holy Spirit. And by the way, this is Jesus Christ, whom you have sent. He has been apostled.

He has been sent out with this divine authority and power to save. And so what we see from this summary of Christ's prayer here in verse 3, is that eternal life is not just unending, unending existence. It's a life that's whose most distinguishing characteristic is acquaintance with the Father and the Lord Jesus Christ Himself. Eternal life is not just living forever, it's being acquainted with the Father and the Son.

And so, let's move back now. basically what Christ has done in his prayer is he's taken us down these stairs to verse 3, and now he's gonna take us back up the stairs, so to speak, to verse 5. It's very interesting when you study this prayer. it can be somewhat confusing from a Western viewpoint because Jesus doesn't say, Here's my first prayer requests, here's 0.2 here's 0.3 here's 0.4.

When you look at the whole, you can see that he is praying for himself and then the disciples, and then the future. When you look at the particulars, it sounds like Jesus is praying in a circle. It's like, what is, what is going on here? in reality, what Jesus is doing by inspiration of the Holy Spirit, because he's God is he's praying in a very Hebrew type of way.

He's praying in a V. The technical term for that is a chasm. Actually, it'd make more sense if we call that a Vism. It's the idea is, is you'll see like a concept is mentioned, which leads to another concept which comes to a big point, and then it works backwards to the opening concept.

And you can see this, I hope you can see this on the back behind me, that what you have here is Jesus starts off with his main prayer request, Father, glorify thy Son. But he's eventually gonna be back to verse 5, Father, glorify me. You guys see that? Then the B section is that the Son also may glorify thee.

B verse 4, I have glorified thee. And then in the middle is the section about eternal life. So we call it chasm or I like the word theism. And, and so now, Jesus has prayed down the stairs, so to speak, and then he's gonna pray back up the stairs.

Does that make sense? I was very worried and having bad dreams last night about this not making sense. OK. So we're going back to 0.2.

The result, Jesus is coming back to the result in verse 4, when he says, I have glorified you, which answers back to glorify your Son, right? Or that your Son may glorify you. I have glorified you on the earth. I have finished the work which you have given me to do.

So it's almost like he's saying, the Son's gonna give eternal life to as many as you have given him. By the way, I asked you that you may glorify me, that I may glorify you. By the way, I have already glorified you and it's complete, which begs the question, how in the world can Jesus say, Eirri tents completed action, I've already glorified you. I've finished the work when he hasn't even died on the cross yet.

Remember, this is the night before the atonement. How can Jesus speak in such terms of completed, finished work? And that's part of the nature of the Trinity, right? This is sometimes people call this the prophetic perfect.

his whole life and death, viewed from the perspective of sovereign completion, so certain to be completed and accepted that it is thought of as done. So Jesus already knows he's gonna die and he's gonna be buried, he's gonna be raised, and he's gonna be glorified. He can already see the glorification of his bride. And so he is speaking almost in the terms of Chick Hearn when the Lakers had not, the clock hadn't yet run out, but Chick knew that it was over, right?

And those of you guys that are old enough to know what I'm talking about. What would Chick say when he knew the game is over, and he would never, he would say this when the clock was still ticking, right? He would say, that's right. He'd say the, the game is in the refrigerator, the door is closed, the lights are out, the eggs are cooling, the butter's getting hard, and the jell-o's jiggling.

And you knew, and a lot of the young people are looking like a scan, like, what are you talking about? Chick Hearn was the announcer for like 45 years, announced like something like 35,000 games in a row. And but whenever Chick said that, you knew the game's over. And that's what Jesus is saying here.

He's saying to the Father, I've glorified you, it's finished. It is so certain to occur that it will occur. The theologian John Gill says, finished has the idea of finished without any help of man. There's nothing that can be added.

Man or the devil cannot unravel anything that he has done, and it is absolutely sure to be accomplished. And so this is Christ bringing us back up the stairs. Father, glorify your Son, that I might glorify you. By the way, I've already done it and it's finished.

And so then that brings us back up to the A section. Christ opened, the prayer by saying, Father, glorify thy Son. Now in verse 5, he says, now, Father, glorify thou me with thine own self, with the glory which I had with you before the world was. So he restates the request.

but adds a component to it with this glory that I had with you before the world was. And so we see here that Christ is asking for not just a glory that he's never had before, but he's asking for a glory that he's actually had an eternity past. And so he's asking to be glorified and to be lifted up and restored beside the Father is the ideal or in the presence of the Father with this glory that I had with you before the world was, which tells us that there's this glory that the Son had, that he was divested of in his incarnation in some sense, but then is restored to him afterwards.

You guys understand?

Shake your head and say no. We have no idea what this is talking about. It's like Jesus had this preincarnate glory. He had existed.

He remember, he's the one that's wrestling with Jacob, right? Remember that crazy scene? And he existed from all eternity past. And then there comes a point in time when he actually comes into the flesh and he cloaks himself as it were, he really is a man, but he restrains himself from the full prerogatives of his deity.

There's a shrouding of his proper glory and now he's saying, Lord, I'm gonna come back to that place. Please glorify me with this unshrouded glory that I had with you before the world was, which takes us back. In these last three verses to more reasons. He's given us the V, the Vism.

Now what's gonna happen is in these last three verses, this V opens its mouth and what comes out of the tip of the V is verses 6 to 8. Let me show you what I'm talking about here. So this is the V, right? We have, but notice, we have the keyism, eternal life is in the middle.

But there's several different words that get repeated in this last section, words like given, given, given, given, sent, no, let me blow it up for you here. So in the middle part of the V, Jesus has been praying as thou hast given him, give, given him. And then know and sent, and then when you open that V up, you get the verse 6 to 8, and what do you have? You have a lot of knowing words like manifest, no, no, give, give, give, give, give, sent came forth.

And so that's what makes commentators say that verses 6 to 8 is really an exposition of the middle part of that V. Does that make sense? Please say yes because I had bad dreams last night. Right, so you have this, this V, the V opens up and then what comes out of the mouth of the V is 6 to 8.

And we're gonna cover this actually a little more quickly. and so this is really more reasons that Christ is reviewing for this whole glory exchange stuff. He says in verse 6, As you have given them authority, I'm sorry, Yeah, let's go, yeah, verse 6. We get Where am I at here?

There we go, OK. All right, so look down with me at verse 6. I have manifested your name. To the men whom you have given me out of the world, they were yours.

You gave them to me, and they have kept your word. When you're seeing these words give over and over again, you want to think of love, right? Because God so loved the world He gave. When he loves the Son, he gives.

When the Son loves the Father, he gives and send and sending is the same type of stuff. And so I have manifested your name to the men whom you give me out of the world, they were yours. You gave them to me, and they have kept Your word. So just consider some of the things that are going on here.

They were yours. So these people that have been given to the Son, Jesus says they were yours. What does that mean? It seems like what he's talking about is they were yours in eternity past, and, and you elected them, and then you have given them to me as part of your elective gift.

You, so he says they were yours, you gave them to me. But then there, here's the real kicker, they have kept your word or they have retained your word. They have kept the gospel. Let me ask you a question.

How can Jesus say that these disciples who are about ready to scatter like a bunch of cockroaches, How can he say they have kept your word in this prayer? You gave them to me. Right? Out of the world, they were yours, you gave them to me, and they have kept your word, by the way.

Peter's just about ready to go deny Christ 3 times, right? The disciples are gonna run away. And yet he's saying, they have kept your word. I think part of what's going on here is Christ is praying for them in an absolute sense as, as a precursor to his high priestly ministry.

This is, again, Christ speaking of completed action. This is so certain to happen. I can say they've kept your word, even though I know that they're gonna deny me in a few hours. Remember what Jesus said to Peter over in Luke 2:31, Lord, the Lord said, Simon, Simon, Satan has asked for you.

I'll tell you what, if somebody told me Satan has asked for you, the hair would rise up in the back of my neck. But Jesus is that he may sift you as wheat, but I have prayed for you that your faith should not fail. And when you return to me, strengthen your brethren. Think about that.

Satan's after Peter, Jesus says, I've prayed for you. Jesus prays for them again here in the high priestly prayer. He's gonna pray again in the Garden of Gethsemane. He's gonna die on the cross and be ascended, he's gonna pray at the right hand of the Father for all of us.

What are the, what are the types of things that Jesus is praying? I think we get a hint out of it here is, is Jesus is praying that our faith should not fail. And guess what? Do Jesus' prayers get answered?

Yes, always. And so, these are mysterious things to us. Verse 7, again, opening up this V. Now, they have known that all things which you have given me are from you.

So they've known it. All things, temporal things, power things, spiritual things, all things which you have given me in your love are from you. They have known that. And then verse 8, for I have given them, I I have loved them by giving them the words which you have loved me with.

I've given them the gospel. These disciples and verse 8, they have received these words, right? And they have known them, not just known about them, but known them truly relationally. In fact, it says, known surely, this is absolute assurance.

This isn't like, well, I think this might be true. No, this is, they have known that I came forth from you. That means they've got eternal life. What is eternal life?

That they may know you, the only true God and Jesus Christ you ever sent. So when he says they have known you surely, and that I came forth from you, he's saying they have eternal life. Of which they have certain knowledge, full assurance of faith. They know that Jesus is no impostor, and the rest of that verse, and they have believed that you sent me.

One commentator says, how tenderhearted is the acknowledgment of the feeble faith of those infantile believers. Jesus is speaking of the faith of the 11 as if it's rock solid. They have known absolute certainty, they believe they know. Why can Jesus say these things?

Because he's prayed for them and their faith will not fail. Even though the next day they're going to scatter. This is the character of, of the prayer of Christ, and it's the character of what we get to enjoy, those of us who are in Christ. It's the character of what Jacob was beginning to get a realization of when his name was changed from tricky to Israel, struggler with God.

Right? What are the uses of this prayer? We're gonna stop at verse 8. Old Puritan prayers would talk about the uses of a doctrine.

And so we're gonna talk about the uses of this particular Prayer. Well, I think one of the things that we can say about this prayer up to this point is we are an in Trinitarian, we are in Trinitarian love ponds. We are glory trophies. How does that make you feel?

You're just a pawn. You're just a, you're just a pawn in a, in a, in a, in an exchange, a love exchange between the father and the son. It should make you feel great. We are love paws, we are trophies.

There's this thing going on that is so much bigger than us. The Father loves the Son so much that he's giving these, these trophies to his Son Jesus. And Jesus like, I'm gonna give eternal life to every one of them, that you may be glorified. And so we are involved in this inner Trinitarian eternal covenant thing that should make us feel very secure.

If we're in Christ. If you haven't embraced Christ, this is not yours. If you have not received the Lord as your savior, then you don't get to enjoy this. But if you come into Christ, and it's not like you gotta work real hard into it, you just have to believe, right?

And this belief, by the way, is granted to us. Remember, it had been appoint everyone who had been appointed to an eternal life, believed. And so we are part of this inner Trinitarian love exchange. I think another thing that we can say here is our salvation has been decreed from all eternity.

It was not Plan B. It's not like God said, oh man, I didn't know Jesus was gonna die on the cross. Boy, that ruins things. I was hoping he was gonna set up his kingdom now.

all right, let's, let's go to Plan B. Now, this was plan A from all eternity, that the Father had given the Son, he's gonna give the Son authority over all flesh, and the Son's gonna give eternal life to as many as the Father had given him. And so it's, it's part of the eternal decree. Thirdly, we can say that Jesus prayed then, he prays now, Jesus always prays according to the Father's will and his prayers always get answered.

And so just as Jesus prayed for Peter that his faith would not fail, if you were in Christ, even if the devil has asked for you, if he's harassing you, Jesus' prayers get answered. And he prays for his own as we see right here. Here we see more particularly him praying for his disciples. In future weeks, we'll see that he's praying for us in verses 20.

To 26, but I think we can also say this, while we can't pray this prayer as Christ did, we can't say glorify me. There are many ways we can use this prayer in our own prayers. As you just meditate on this particular prayer, there's lots of things in it that can be fuel for our own prayers. For instance, in verse 6, it says, I have manifested your name to the men whom you have given me out of the world.

One of the things I've been praying lately is, please, Father, give my son to your son out of the world. Jesus, manifest your Father to my children. We don't have any guarantee, but we can pray this. We can pray that, that the, that the Father's name would be manifested to our children.

As parents, we do have a role to play, right? We pray, we teach, we preach the gospel, but we need to be very, very careful that we do not behave as if it all depends on us. That's vanity. When you just look at the, the scope of scripture, there are so many godly examples where the kids just flat out did not follow in their parents' footsteps.

As a, you can look at Josiah, for instance, King Josiah, his, I think it's his children or his child, maybe it was a great-grandchild, just becomes one of the most wicked kings in the Old Testament. we pray, we teach. We depend upon the Lord. We say, Lord, I pray that you would give my child to your son.

And, and then we, we wait and see what the Lord's gonna do, to think that, oh, if I only would have said things a little differently when they were younger. Oh, if I only would have spanked them or if I didn't spank them enough, or if I only would have taken them to Ijuana more, or if I only would have done this more, or I got angry that one time and therefore my child is doomed. That's vanity. You're not God.

This whole thing has been worked out within the councils of the Trinity, and we get to participate by our prayer, our teaching, and our gospel, and just by waiting and trusting what the Lord's gonna do. That's one of the uses I believe of this prayer, this doctrine. Also, Christ's authority over all flesh should impact our boldness. The fact that we believe that Christ has authority over our flesh should affect our boldness and evangelism and prayer, and praise.

When we go out to witness, we can on our way to a witnessing opportunity, we can say, Lord, you have authority over this person. You have authority over everybody. And, and I'm really scared right now, but I know that there's no power in me. Lord, would you be pleased to grant eternal life to this person as I try to share the power of the gospel?

I can just share my testimony, I can, sharing perfectly, do the best I can, and then we just wait on the Lord to do his work. And so we can pray bold prayers for an evangelism. We can ask God for, for things, knowing that Christ has authority over all flesh. And we can give praise to our Lord, knowing that he is the winner, right?

We're not waiting to figure out what the outcome's gonna be of world history. Jesus wins. Sorry to, sorry to break it to you. He's the winner.

And then lastly, I just wanna, I think we can consider this out of this text. If Christ said the disciples had kept God's word, right before they scattered, how do you suppose Christ represents you before the Father when you're at your worst? think about it. Do you think Peter and the disciples could have picked a worse day?

Than the day leading up to the atonement. Here they are the night before arguing about who's gonna be the greatest, right? The part of the upperroom discourse is they're all sitting there like, oh, who's gonna be the greatest? And then Jesus washes their feet.

And then, Peter's like, oh, I'll follow you and Jesus says, oh, you're going to deny me 3 times. And You have all these just interesting things going on. And then as soon as they get over, they've heard all these wonderful proclamations. They heard Jesus pray these words, by the way, right?

They just heard Jesus pray all of these wonderful truths. And then Judas and a bunch of soldiers show up and they just Take off. And yet Jesus is able to pray for them, as if it's already done. The jell-o's jiggling.

Right? But it's getting hard. And so when Jesus looks out at you, through the sovereign decree, he looks and, and this is something that's been a great comfort to me, especially here of late is, you get to, I'm 50 years old now. August 10th, I turned 50, and you get 50, you have some regrets, right?

You can look back and think, oh man, I wish I had done some things differently. But Jesus looks down and he doesn't just see my past, he sees the future, and he sees me in glory. And he sees the ups and downs. He knew the things I was gonna struggle with throughout my lifetime.

I don't use that as an opportunity for the flesh. I use that as an opportunity to thank the Lord for keeping me in him. And Lord, help me stay in you by your grace, right? Does that make sense?

And so, and that's what really gives us the power to stay in Him is, is we consider what Christ is doing for us in his prayers, the way he considers us and his work is already finished. Let's go ahead and bow in prayer and we'll have Our team come up To lead us in another song of praise. And. Our servants come up to take the offering.

Let's pray. Our Lord, we thank you so much for By your grace, allowing this prayer to be heard, observed. Brought back to the memory of John to the Holy Spirit and recorded for us and preserved for 2000 years that we can read. What your son prayed to you the night before his own death.

We thank you, Lord, for the words that are recorded here that remind us of the great love that exists between you and your son, and that That interchange, that reciprocal love. We thank you for the mysteries, Lord, that we see in this prayer that really befuddle us when we consider that there are things that have been worked out long before the world existed. And yet we get to experience and participate in that. We pray, Father, that we'd be encouraged that those of us that have embraced Christ, that we would find assurance in this prayer.

We pray, Lord, that Those of us that are struggling, that we would be encouraged. We pray, Lord, that this prayer would impact and affect our own prayers and that we would be able to go boldly before the throne, which such thoughts as your authority over all flesh, your ability to give eternal life to as many, Lord Jesus as your Father has given to you. We pray for those amongst us who do not yet know you, Lord, that they would be wooed, that they would be provoked to jealousy, wanting to be part of this thing that your bride experiences.

Lord, that you and your spirit would move in them and that they would be convicted of their own sin and feel the depths of depravity and And the horrors of hell and that they would see the great hope and love that is in Jesus Christ and embrace him as their savior.

I pray that you would do that work that only you can do as your gospel goes out and is preached. And Lord, we also just pray for those who will remain in this room stiff-hearted and stiff-necked and not be moved by such words. We pray, Lord Father, for your mercy to come upon them at some point, as we know there's been appointed for men to die once and after this, the judgment. All of us have our deaths on your calendar.

It is immovable. We pray for those amongst us who do not yet know you that by your grace, you would grant them the humility to see their sin and that you would open up their eyes, so that they would believe the gospel and be saved. We pray this in the authority of the Lord Jesus Christ. All God's people said, Amen.