The Real Lord's Prayer, Part 1
Tom Shrader introduces John 17, widely regarded as the most remarkable prayer in Scripture, explaining that Jesus prays first for Himself, then for His disciples, and finally for all future believers. He focuses on verses 1–5, unpacking Jesus' request that the Father glorify the Son so that the Son may glorify the Father, fulfilled through the cross, burial, and resurrection. Central to the message is Jesus' definition of eternal life in verse 3—not a quantity of existence but a quality of knowing the one true God—and Shrader applies this by contrasting genuine life found in Christ with the hollow promises of worldly pursuits.
“Eternal life is to know Him. Real life, really living, is to know Christ.”
— Tom Shrader
Series: John: The Essence of Life (2007)
Recorded: 2007 at East Valley Bible Church
Duration: 57 min
Themes: prayer, eternal life, glory, knowing God, the cross, resurrection, worldly pursuits, identity in Christ, new believer, searching for meaning, feeling empty, young adult, questioning faith, spiritual seeker, person chasing success, lifelong christian needing renewal
Scripture: John 17:1-5, John 17:3, John 1:14, John 2, John 7:30, John 8, John 10, John 12:41, John 14:12, John 14:31, John 16:7, John 16:23-25, John 16:33, Genesis 3, Genesis 22, Isaiah 6, Mark 1:35, Matthew 28:18, James
Theological Themes: high priestly prayer, glorification, soteriology, eternal life defined, union with God, atonement, incarnation, John 17
Full Transcript
Opening Prayer
Truth radically transforms and changes the way we live. God, thank you for allowing us to see that this has nothing to do with us and everything to do with You. Before the foundations of the earth, You decreed that one day there would be a point in time where we would understand that gospel and believe it. We pray this morning that as we look at Your Word — at this key passage of Scripture — You would use this time to touch our lives, change our minds, and therefore our actions. We pray this to You here this morning in Jesus' name, Amen.
Welcome and Church Announcements
If you are with us for the first time, welcome. We are thrilled that you are here, and we have provided you a guest registry card that will jumpstart our ability to connect with you here at the church. When we receive that card, we will send you some information. The timing is great if you are new to the church, because next Sunday is the next Connect One class — a class designed for you to come in, learn a great deal, and meet some of our staff. I will join for the last portion of that gathering and we will have lunch together, so please register so we can plan accordingly. If you need childcare, we want to make sure we provide it.
That class will get you up to speed very quickly on East Valley Bible Church and who we are. We know that this time of year we receive many visitors and guests, and it is significant to us that you are here. We want to find the best way we can to serve you and let you know what we are about so you can decide if this is the place you want to call home.
If you have been around for a while and want to formalize your relationship with East Valley Bible Church, the next membership class begins the following week, July 8th. It is a three-week class — a little more than just a hello. It is an opportunity for us to get to know one another, and at the end of that time we formalize the relationship through membership.
Summer Ministry Opportunities
Summer used to be a time when everything slowed down from Memorial Day to Labor Day, but that simply is not the case anymore — not here or anywhere. School starts for some students in the middle of July, for others by the end, and for nearly everyone by the first week of August. Ministries have followed suit and no longer slow down the way they once did.
Summer is also a key recruiting time for us. If you have been thinking about exploring the worship and arts ministry, now is the time to do that so we can get you plugged in for orientation in September. Be aware of other areas of ministry around campus as well, and know that we want to serve you in those ways.
Crosswork, our ministry for singles thirty years of age and older, has a summer retreat set for the end of July up at Bison Ranch near Heber, where it will be a little cooler. That gathering is scheduled for July 27th, 28th, and 29th. Information is in the bulletin, and you can go ahead and register there.
Regarding area ministry — we take the city you live in, whether it is one of five cities or Tempe packaged together with greater Phoenix, and we have a ministry for you. We have a way for you to plug in, for us to know you, serve you, and allow you to serve within your area. Go to the church website, click on "In Your Area" on the right side, select your town, and you are off and running. Area ministry will speak to you in more detail about this in September.
M25 Ministry and The Commons
Please take a look at the M25 insert in your bulletin. This is a time of year when this ministry is easily forgotten — needs continue through summer, but people get distracted with vacation and the busyness of the season. The need, however, is present all year long, and now as much as ever we need your help in these specific areas. We are in touch with the community and aware of specific needs. Take that insert home, put it on the refrigerator, and begin to accumulate goods you can bring to church and drop off here next Sunday.
We also had a special time this week preparing for the Commons, and there is an insert in your bulletin about it. My guess is it will take us three or four weeks to figure out the rhythm of how the Commons works and how you use it, but I encourage you to get over there and experience it.
Introduction to John 17
Open your Bibles, if you would, please, to the Gospel of John. We are going to be today in our study in what is often called the High Priestly Prayer. It is known also as the Real Lord's Prayer. This is Jesus praying. It is a powerful chapter.
Let me give you some words of introduction by some scholars, and then try to set context for you. J. C. Ryle writes this: "The chapter we have now begun, John 17, is the most remarkable in the Bible. It stands alone, and there is nothing like it." That is pretty strong. Another commentator writes this: "Next follows a chapter, John 17, which one may perhaps characterize truly as unequaled for depth and scope in all of Scripture."
As I said, it is known as the True Lord's Prayer. Jesus here is praying. Look at verse 1: "Jesus spoke these things and lifting His eyes up to heaven, He said..." Jesus begins to pray.
Setting the Context
After Jesus had spoken these things, let me remind you what has taken place here. Jesus is preparing the disciples for the reality that He is going to suffer and die. He has celebrated with them and instituted the Last Supper. He has made Peter aware...
Background: The Upper Room and the Road to the Garden
Though Peter said, "I will lay down my life for you," Jesus had told him he would not make it through the next day — that he would deny Him three times before they ever got there. Jesus had told the disciples He was going to prepare a place for them, had dialogued with them, and had told them another was coming — a Helper He would send. He said, "I am going to leave you My peace," but that it would be different than worldly peace.
Then in John chapter 14, verse 31, Jesus said, "Get up and let us go from here." The idea is that they went out and walked outside the city, likely coming at this point to a vineyard, and Jesus used that vineyard as an illustration. "I am the vine and you are the branches." He used this marvelous teaching truth about how He is in us and we are in Him, and that is our strength — that we abide in Him, we reside in Him, we find our life in Him. With Him we can do many things; apart from Him we can do nothing. He is the source of our power and strength, and He is the source of our joy, so that in the midst of this abiding with Him comes our joy.
He tells them in chapter 14, verse 12, that they are to love one another, and He is preparing them for that — He will even pray for that a bit. He reminds them that just because they are of Him and He is with them and they abide in Him, they should not think everything will be smooth, because the world will hate them. The world hated Him, and it will hate them as well. Why? Because they are not one of the world. The world persecuted Him, and it will persecute them.
The Reality of Adversity in the Christian Life
Do not for a second think that because you know Jesus Christ as your Lord and Savior everything is going to be smooth. There was someone on television the other night expressing exactly that — they had come to Christ and were so excited, and it was an exhilarating time for them, but then along came the difficulties of life, and they were stunned by it. Even when we say we don't expect everything to be smooth, somehow we are still struck when adversity comes into our lives.
We still get sick. We still get cancer. We still have children who go away, problems and difficulties and hardship, deals that fall through, businesses that fail, aches and pains of growing old. We are not exempt from any of that. Jesus says this is going to come to us; we are going to experience it. And beyond that, the world is going to hate us on top of it all.
But then He says in chapter 16, verse 7, relax — "It is to your advantage that I go away, because now the Helper will come." This One who is coming will convict the world of sin and righteousness and judgment, which was unpacked several weeks ago. He also tells them in verse 23, ask in My name and the Father will give it to you; verse 24, ask in My name and you will receive it; verse 25, ask in My name.
The Importance of Prayer
Jesus tells us to be about prayer, that prayer is important, and that we are to ask. We understand all the qualifiers of that, and sometimes we can say, "I know there are these qualifiers," and feel as though the qualifiers take all the wind out of it. But no — He is saying ask. James says, "You have not because you ask not." We are to be praying, and we are to ask big and bold things. We are to ask God to do great things in our lives, to use us in significant ways, to pray big prayers.
As we do, God begins to align our will with His. Prayer begins to change not Him, but us. It begins to soften our hearts and begins to really connect us with the people around us. The most powerful way to stay connected with somebody is not to have coffee with them every day, but to pray for them every day. That is the most powerful way to deeply connect on a real level.
Setting Up John 17
That is all the background leading to verse 1 of chapter 17. In chapter 16, verse 33, Jesus says, "These things I have spoken to you so that in Me you may have peace. In the world you have tribulation, but take courage — I have overcome the world." In other words, He is telling them this ahead of time so that when it comes, they will be prepared and will not be surprised by it.
Now we come to this prayer — this powerful prayer unlike any other we see in Scripture. Throughout Jesus' ministry, the Gospel writers tell us He would get away to pray. He was praying at the time of His baptism. He was praying right before the Mount of Transfiguration. We see it all through the Gospels — Jesus would leave the disciples and go away. Mark chapter 1, verse 35 is typical of it: "Jesus rose up a great while before the day, and He went out and departed into a solitary place, and there He prayed." We are told over and over again that He went and prayed.
Only here, in John 17, are we given a glimpse of what He is actually praying. That is why this section is so powerful.
What the Great Voices of the Faith Have Said
The great Reformer John Knox, on his deathbed, asked that this prayer be read to him over and over again. He said it was in this prayer that he cast his anchor, and hopefully we will see why. Martin Luther, writing about John 17, wrote this: "This is truly beyond measure a warm and hearty prayer. It opens the depth of His heart, both in reference to us and to His Father, and He pours them all out. It is so honest, so simple, so deep, so rich, so wide, no one can fathom it" — meaning the full ramifications of this prayer.
The commentator John Brown writes, "The seventeenth chapter of the Gospel of John is without doubt the most remarkable portion of the most remarkable book in the world. The Scripture of truth, given by the inspiration of God, contains many wonderful passages..."
The Hour Has Come
None is more wonderful than this. It is the utterance of the mind and heart of the God-man in the very crisis of His great undertaking, in the immediate prospect of completing by the sacrifice of Himself the work which He had been given to do, for the accomplishment of which He had become incarnate. It is the utterance of these to the Father who has sent Him. Here is the last sentence: there is no bringing out of these plain words all that is seen and felt to be in them.
That is our task. Both Luther's words and Brown's words tell us that you will never get all of this. You cannot possibly understand all of this. So our prayer, as we prayed this morning, is that God will open our eyes and allow us to get some of this today, and that each day we would grow in our knowledge and love of Him, understanding these truths more and more.
If you were to read through this prayer, you would see that it very easily divides into three sections. In John chapter 17, verses 1 through 5, Jesus prays for Himself. In verses 6 through 19, Jesus prays for the eleven disciples gathered there. Then in verses 20 through 26, Jesus prays for you, for me, for us.
Ray Stedman calls this the longest prayer — not only because here is a prayer of Christ where the words are recorded and exposed to us, but also because it is still going on. He is still praying for you. He prayed for Himself that He would be glorified, and then He glorified the Father. He prayed for the disciples that they would be protected and sanctified, and He prayed for us that we would be unified. That is the backdrop of all of this.
Jesus Lifts His Eyes to Heaven
John chapter 17, verse 1: "Jesus spoke these things, lifting up His eyes to heaven." I have no comment other than that it sounds striking — we are given a posture here. I do not know that it tells us this is the required way to pray, but clearly something is taking place. He stops, His eyes go to heaven, and He said, "Father, the hour has come to glorify Your Son, that Your Son may glorify You."
There are two ideas we want to deal with here. One is that the Son would be glorified and the Father would be glorified. The other is the idea that the time has come. In John chapter 2, at the miracle of Cana, when Mary comes to Jesus and says they have no wine, Jesus said to her, "My hour has not yet come." With the woman at the well, Jesus makes a similar comment, saying there is an hour coming that is not here now.
Throughout His ministry we see those comments repeated. In John chapter 7, verse 30, Jesus has been teaching and they are seeking to seize Him, but no man could lay a hand on Him — because His hour had not yet come. In John chapter 8, He spoke in the treasury, and as He taught in the temple no one seized Him, because His hour had not yet come. They desired to kill Him, but the appointed time was not right.
That alone reminds us that Jesus is in control. This is not an accident. We do not get to the crucifixion and say something must have gone wrong and the plan fell apart. The time was not right in John 2, and it has not been right until this moment — but now the hour has come.
All of Scripture Points to This Moment
When He speaks of the hour that has come, He is talking about the fulfillment of all of those Old Testament prophecies and the reality of all of that Old Testament picture. If I were to grab the Old Testament, all of it is pointing to this moment — from as early as Genesis 3, when man sins and God promises a Savior. God institutes the whole system of sacrifice so that when John the Baptist sees Jesus, he says, "Behold the Lamb of God." There have been all these lambs until now, but this is the Lamb of God who takes away the sin of the world. This is the One that all of those things have been talking about.
So everything in that section of our Bible is telling us — here comes the prophecy, here comes the picture, here comes the One who will save — and all of it points toward this moment. Now Jesus says that time is here.
The Meaning of Glory
Here is His prayer: that the Father would glorify the Son, and that the Son may glorify the Father. We want to get our arms around this idea of glory or glorification. We can define it this way: it is the manifestation of something that is hidden, or to esteem — beyond what we even now know to be true — something that is real. "The Word became flesh and dwelt among us," John 1:14, "and we beheld His glory." So Jesus is praying that the Father might glorify the Son — reveal Him — and that the Son may glorify the Father.
The Son glorifies the Father by doing the will of the Father. This is the reason the Father sent Him. He was sent for this moment, sent to die, sent to live the perfect life. From the very beginning Jesus was clear about this. When Jesus was twelve years old, they went to Jerusalem for Passover, and on the way home Mary and Joseph realized they had lost Him. At this point, whatever the full detail of their understanding of Jesus was, they certainly knew there was something special about Him, that He was the Messiah and the Savior — and now they had lost Him. The Savior's picture on a milk carton is probably not a good thing for Mom and Dad, and what must they have thought?
The Father and the Son Glorified
They thought He was with friends, so they went and found Him. Where did they find Him? They found Him in the temple, with the teachers. And what did He say? He said, "Why would you not look for Me here? Wouldn't you know I'd be in My Father's house? Wouldn't you know I'd be about My Father's business?" With the woman at the well, He said, "This is food for Me. This is where I find My substance — to do the will of the Father." Jesus glorifies and reveals the Father to us through His teaching, through His miracles, through His life. The Father glorifies Christ through the resurrection.
Jesus comes and says, "It is finished," and the resurrection becomes God's amen to that declaration. Jesus is glorified. We understand who He is. He is revealed to the world, and it is indisputable. You could have looked at His life and perhaps somehow explained away the miracles, explained away what was going on — but once He is dead and then alive again, you have to deal with something very different.
We talk about this at Easter every year. Jesus rose from the dead. It is indisputable. The facts are overwhelming. There is only one conclusion you can really arrive at if you honestly look at the evidence. And if Jesus truly rose from the dead, then He is who He said He was. No one in history has ever done anything remotely close to that. Jesus not only predicted His death — He predicted the resurrection. That tells us He is who He claimed to be: the Messiah, God come in the flesh. He is glorified by the Father in the resurrection.
So that is His prayer: "The hour has come. Glorify Me, and I will glorify You." And that happens in the cross, the death, the burial, and the resurrection.
Authority Over All Flesh
Jesus prays to the Father, and speaks of the authority given to Him: authority over all flesh, over all that is in the world, over all of creation. In Matthew 28:18, as Jesus is leaving the disciples and Matthew is closing his gospel, He says, "All power in heaven and on earth has been given to Me." Even as the Father gave Him authority over all flesh and all of creation, so it is to all whom the Father has given to Him. That phrase — "these that You have given to Me" — appears five other times in the next ten verses, and we will deal with it next week.
All those given to Him, He gives eternal life. In John chapter 10, we are familiar with that imagery. Jesus speaks of being the Good Shepherd: "My sheep hear My voice, and I know them, and they follow Me, and I give them eternal life. They will never perish, and no one will snatch them out of My hand. My Father has given them to Me, He is greater than all, and no one is able to snatch them out of My Father's hand. My Father and I are one." What Jesus is claiming there, by the way, is deity. That is why the Jews at that point pick up stones to stone Him.
Jesus is saying, "Father, there are those whom You have given to Me." We know from Scripture that none will be lost — and we will deal with that next week. And to them He gives eternal life.
The Meaning of Eternal Life
When I was a young believer and heard the phrase "eternal life," I thought of heaven. I do not think that way anymore, because the more I study, the more I learn that eternal life is so much more than heaven. Eternal life has a quantitative side and a qualitative side. Quantitatively, I think of simply existing forever into the future. In that sense, every person who is alive has eternal life in some form. Quality, then, becomes the real issue.
Jesus is not simply saying you will have consciousness forever, that you will be alive forever. He is saying you will be alive forever and you will be united with Him. Look at verse 3 — He defines it Himself. This is eternal life: "that they might know You, the only true God, and that they might know Jesus whom You have sent." Incidentally, verse 3 is the only time in this prayer that Jesus references Himself by name. I am not entirely sure what that means, but it is worth noting.
Eternal life, then, is not just quantity but quality. "For God so loved the world that He gave His only begotten Son, that whoever believes in Him has eternal life." Scripture tells us that if we believe in Christ, if we come to Him as Lord and Savior, if we understand who He is and respond to that, we have eternal life. And now He is defining what that eternal life actually is — it is to know Him.
Knowing God: Two Perspectives
I want to draw on two men I love to read — James Boyce and Ray Stedman — as they both speak to this idea of knowing Him. One brings a more scholarly angle, the other a practical, grounded reality, and together they are wonderful. Boyce writes: "What is this knowledge? It is a personal encounter with God in which, because of His holiness, we become aware of our sin and consequently our deep personal need, and then by His grace turn to Christ as our Savior. This knowledge occurs only where God's Holy Spirit is at work beforehand to make it possible, and it always changes us, issuing in a heart response to God in true devotion." This is involved even in Christ's brief statement, for He stresses that the knowledge of which He speaks is knowledge of the only true God, and of the One whom He has sent.
Knowledge of God and Self
The knowledge spoken of here is knowledge of the true God and of Him the Savior. It is knowing God, but it is also knowing ourselves. It is two-sided. It is seeing God for who He is — God reveals Himself through nature, through Scripture, through His Holy Spirit, and through Christ. Through that revelation, we can begin to experience Him in a real way, beyond mere informational intake.
When we begin to see God, we get a picture of ourselves. This is Isaiah 6, a passage we find ourselves returning to again and again, where Isaiah sees God and then says, "Woe to me, for I am undone." When you understand who God is, you find yourself. When you see His power and His might and His majesty and His holiness and His justice, it is as though He is holding a mirror up to you, and you begin to see yourself as you really are.
Not how your friends see you, not how your friends want you to be, not how you wish you were — but as you really are. He takes away the game of comparing ourselves to other people and says, no, compare yourself to this. That is Boyce's idea.
Eternal Life Begins Today
Stedman writes this, defining knowing God: "That is really living. Coming to know the Father in Jesus will fill a life full. It has a quality of life that lasts forever. This is what Jesus means. Through my own lifetime, I've come to learn that God is more, that God is the most exciting being there is. It is the world that is filled with boredom and loneliness and misery. All its offer of adventure and allurement crumble to dust when you try to grasp them."
This connects directly to the book of Ecclesiastes. In chapter 1, verse 2, Solomon says, "Meaningless, meaningless, everything is meaningless." He then spends twelve chapters explaining that again and again, and only in the last two verses of the last chapter does he give you the answer. Solomon was uniquely positioned and allowed by God to experience all the things you think will make you happy.
Solomon says, if you think you are going to find it in sex, or in alcohol or drugs, or in building an incredible house or acquiring rental property, or in accumulating gold and silver, or in business success or public works — if you think you are going to find meaning and purpose there, it is not going to happen. Been there, done that. That is a beautiful picture of what Stedman captures in that one sentence: all its offer of adventure and allurement crumble to dust when you try to grasp them. It is not the real thing.
The Knockoff Driver
Consider the guy who wants to buy one of the new drivers. The new drivers run five hundred and six hundred dollars. His wife says he is not spending that kind of money on a club, and common sense would agree. So a friend says he knows someone who has a knockoff — a driver that looks just like the real one but is made with lesser quality materials, not engineered as well, and does not truly perform.
You go out to the range to get fitted for the real driver, and the ball is jumping off the face. Then you try the knockoff. You are swinging hard, but the result is not the same. It is cheaper, it looks similar, and it promises to perform just like the real thing — but it does not deliver.
That is what Solomon says. That is what Jesus says. That is what Scripture teaches. Life offers this knockoff. It seems as though if you get that relationship, or that deal, or move into that house, or buy that car, or get away for the summer, you should finally be happy. Life keeps making that promise. But Jesus says eternal life goes on forever and it begins today, and it addresses this world right now. Jesus said, "I have come that you might have life, and have it abundantly."
Walking with God
Stedman's point is that life is exciting with Christ — that boredom and loneliness and misery are not found in Christ, they are found in the world. When you walk with God, every day is an adventure. He is innovative, imaginative, and creative. This is eternal life.
Eternal Life Begins Now
Jesus says that eternal life is the redemptive life for which everyone longs in his heart, and it is what He gives. I used this illustration with the students at camp. Suzanne went over a couple of days early, and we were staying in Del Mar. She said there was a place with a pier, and I said that's up at Oceanside. So we drove up to Oceanside, found the pier, and I got a parking spot right where you stepped out of the car and onto the pier.
I am on a roll with parking spots. It has been a long time since I've had a bad one. We get out, walk onto the pier, and there are Scott and Lisa Kuyper, so we say hello and talk with them. There are all these guys fishing, and I can't leave it alone.
There was one guy fishing with no fish. I said, "Hey man, where are the fish?" He said, "You should have seen the fish I caught yesterday." I said, "Empty today?" He said, "Yeah." I said, "Well, what are you doing?" He said, "Just killing time." I had that experience with about half a dozen guys, and every one of them said the same thing — you should have been here yesterday, or three days ago I caught a three-foot sand shark, but they're not biting today. And every one of them, when I asked what they were doing, said the same thing: killing time.
Then I met a kid with a school hat on, there with his friend fishing. I said, "You go to school there?" He said, "I just graduated." I said, "Well, it doesn't look like it made much difference in your life. What are you going to do?" He said, "I'm going to law school." I said, "Why?" He said, "I don't know. It just seems like something I ought to do." I said, "Well, I bet that enthusiasm will carry you through that first year that's supposed to be so hard." He said, "Yeah, whatever." I said, "What are you doing today?" And what do you think he said? Just killing time.
Then there was a guy smoking a cigarette — a cool old guy. I said, "Hey man, where are the fish?" He said, "I caught a big fish two days ago. All I've got now are these little ones, so I'm cutting them up for bait." I said, "Are you retired?" He said, "No, I work, but I had a couple of days off." So here you are — you work, you've got two days off, and what are you doing? Killing some time.
He Left You Here for a Purpose
Here is what Jesus did not save you to do: just kill time. Jesus did not leave us here to just kill time. He left you here for a reason and a purpose, and He has given you all the gifts, talents, money, resources, and time you need to fulfill it.
The other side of that, which I hear all the time, is "I'm so busy, I'm so busy, I'm so busy." There is no way you can be too busy if you are pursuing the things that God has left you here for, because God is not going to give you something to do and not give you the time to do it. So if I am too busy, I have either miscalculated — I thought He gave me this much, but He really only gave me that much, and I have filled beyond what He really gave me to do — or I know what needs to be done but I am wasting time on it. That is eternal life that begins today, to know Him.
The One True God
What Jesus is doing here is eliminating all the other possibilities. You live in a world and a time where our country is pursuing all sorts of gods. You can go to Barnes & Noble or Borders or any bookstore today and see entire sections on spirituality — philosophy, speculation, and all manner of other things. The people pursuing those paths will all say they know God. We would say, not in an arrogant way at all, that no, not unless you know the God of the Bible, because there is one true God. It is in that one true God that I find eternal life.
I find my life in Him and Him alone — not just my salvation, though salvation for sure. My remedy for sin is in Him. There are two things I know that I keep discovering, and I go through them every day. The first is the gospel. I need to hear the gospel every day. I need to be reminded every day of who God is, who Christ is, who I am, and who I am now in Him.
The second thing I have to be reminded of every day is this: if I am trying to find my fulfillment in life in anything other than Him — any person, place, or thing — I will always end up disappointed. Every time.
The Danger of Little Gods
When Suzanne and I were getting married, she walked down the aisle and said "I do," and I walked out the happiest man in the world — because I married her hoping she would change me. I was asking her to take my life, which was a mess filled with turmoil and pain, and to redeem it. I was really asking her to be God. She is really, really, really good, but she is not God.
What happens in life is that along the way, sometimes totally unknowingly, I begin to acquire things that become my little gods. I begin to find my meaning and purpose in them, and I do not really realize it until something is taken away from me, or until it disappoints me even when I achieve it.
I was flipping channels last night — Saturday is the day I really shut down — and I was waiting for Lawrence Welk to come on. Lawrence Welk did two Mills Brothers songs last night. It doesn't get
The Test of Abraham
Nothing can compare to who He is — He is so good. Before the show, they featured an "Everyday Hero" segment giving awards to the student of the year and the official of the year. They brought back the man who won in 2003, and he is now a cadet at West Point. That is great. But if you begin to find your identity in being a cadet, or a scholar, or in closing the deal, you are in trouble, because ultimately it is going to disappoint you.
That was the whole point with Abraham. God was really trying to determine: is there anything in you, Abraham, that is going to stop you from being My man? And it is hard to imagine a bigger test than Isaac. We had been waiting and waiting and waiting, and here he is. Are you willing to sacrifice even Isaac? What we learn from Genesis chapter 22 is that the answer is yes.
And that is what God says to you and me: anything. It could be a child. It could be a grandchild. It could be a scholarship. It could be your spouse. It could be your health, your job, your house. Anything. Anything other than the one true God — finding your joy and peace and love in Him and Him alone — that is eternal life. That is really living. Really living is to know Christ.
Glorifying God Through the Work He Gives Us
Verse 4: "I have glorified you on earth by accomplishing the work you gave me to do." A lot of great teachers would build a whole message around that verse alone, and you easily could. I think you can couple verses 3 and 4 and say this is eternal life — and that we too are given something by God to do and to accomplish on this earth, and we glorify God when we set about and accomplish the work He has given us to do.
In context, what Jesus is saying is that the Father gave Him work to do, Jesus completed it, and through that — and now through the death on the cross, the completion of it — He has glorified the Father. You too have been given work to do, and God looks to be glorified in you as you complete that work.
Your pursuit is to understand that God left you here for a reason — a purpose, a meaning, a direction. Do you know what it is? Because if you cannot answer that question, I do not know how you would ever fulfill it except by happenstance. It would seem to me that a significant part of your life as a follower of Christ would be understanding why He put you here. I know it is to glorify God — I have all of that. But what does that look like specifically? What is it He wants you to be doing? You need to be able to figure that out, because without a conscious answer, you are either going to stumble into it by accident or spend your days just killing time — and that is not the way you want to live.
The Glory Before the World Was
Verse 5: "Now Father, glorify me together with Yourself with the glory which I had with You before the world was." There is a distinction being made here regarding glory. Jesus is saying that on this earth, as He was obedient to the Father, He fulfilled the Father's will, glorified Him, and made Him manifest. The Father glorified the Son through the resurrection. But now Jesus is saying something further: He longs to be restored to the position He held before He came to this earth.
That is the Isaiah 6 position. Isaiah 6 is filled with these essential truths — seeing God for who He is, seeing myself for who I am, and then being ready when He says, "Whom shall I send?" to answer, "Send me." When Isaiah writes: "In the year of King Uzziah's death I saw the Lord sitting on a throne, lofty and exalted, with the train of His robe filling the temple. Seraphim stood above Him, each having six wings; with two he covered his face, and with two he covered his feet, and with two he flew. And one called out to another and said, 'Holy, Holy, Holy, is the Lord of hosts, the whole earth is full of His glory.' And the foundations of the thresholds trembled at the voice of him who called out, while the temple was filling with smoke." What did Isaiah see?
John's Gospel tells us. In John chapter 12, verse 41, John writes: "These things Isaiah said because he saw His glory." What did Isaiah see in Isaiah chapter 6? He saw Jesus in His pre-incarnate state, glorified. That is the glory Jesus is longing to experience again.
The Emptying and the Longing to Return
When He left heaven, He emptied Himself — not of His deity, but of that glory. We see Him through the Old Testament periodically. Remember Shadrach, Meshach, and Abednego in the fire? Those watching said, "Wait — how many men did we put in there? One, two, three. How many are in there now? One, two, three — there are four of them. And the fourth looks like an angel." That was Jesus.
Now Jesus prays: "I want to be glorified with You again. I want to be restored to that position." "Now Father, glorify me together with Yourself with the glory which I had with You before the world was." That is the glory He is speaking of. And so here begins Jesus' prayer for Himself.
Praying for God's Glory Above Our Own
Jesus's prayer for Himself is not selfish. His prayer for Himself is that God would glorify Him, and He would glorify God. Can you imagine praying with that pure heart? I don't know that we'll ever get there. Even when we pray prayers that on the surface sound so good, there's always a selfishness to them, isn't there?
Oh, Father, would You please save my spouse? Why? Well, my life would be a lot easier if You could save this person. That would be helpful to me. Oh, Father, save this boss. Why? Because he might treat me as a human being, she might respond in a more favorable way. Oh, God, don't let me be sick. Why? Well, because I don't want to be sick.
Rather than saying, God, glorify me — whether it's through an unbelieving spouse, an unbelieving boss, a terrible work situation, or whatever it may be — in the pain and the suffering, God, I want to glorify You in this. I want to make You manifest. I want people to look at me and say, how do you do that? And I say, I can't do it. It's Christ in me.
I want people to see my good works and glorify You, my Father, who is in heaven. And God, if You need to use suffering and pain and hardship and difficulty, then do it. Jesus prays for Himself, and then next week we'll look at the prayer He offers for the disciples, and then the prayer He offers for you and for me.
Closing Prayer
God, thank You for this wonderful truth. Thank You that Jesus Christ is Lord and Savior, that He is sovereign, that He is the King. Thank You that if we believe in Him, we have eternal life. God, thank You that all who are given to the Son indeed will be saved.
We pray that You would touch our hearts in such a way — some for the first time — that we would see that truth, and we would run to the cross and find life in Jesus and Him alone. And for others of us, maybe we've been at this a while and we've grown a little stale. Maybe we have forgotten those words that Ray Stedman penned, that You are an innovative, creative, imaginative God, and in You we find excitement and joy and peace.
All of real life is found not in a person, a place, or a thing other than Jesus. Everything else is a knockoff. It's a phony. It won't produce. It claims to be the real thing or just like it, but it isn't. God, take those words and drill them deep into our hearts.
Father, thank You for this gathering. Like this building, it is just a tool, and I pray that for many years You will take believers and unite their hearts together — that it will be a place of study and worship, fellowship, and just plain fun. May those who don't know You come and join us and look and say, there's something different about these people. Your God must be a special God.
Father, I pray that You would use us, that in the way we live we would glorify You, and that we might know You, the one true God, and that we would know Jesus, whom You sent to this earth. Father, we pray in His name. Amen.