This is life eternal. So here
our saviour, on the night that he was betrayed, the night he
began to shed his precious blood, gives this wonderfully clear
declaration of what eternal life is. This is life eternal. And I'll just be brief because,
Lord willing, I'll want to look at this in more detail next week.
But I want us to ponder some of this just briefly before we
come to the Lord's Supper. And one of the things that Cole
did, which has been really intriguing, is that if we're very environmentally
friendly now, we can hold our heads up high when we're dealing
with the greenies. But one of the things that's
lovely about, they made a bamboo, these little cups? Sugarcane
pole. Sugarcane pole. Even better,
isn't it? But it stains. And it stains inside the cup. And when we take the elements
that represent the broken body and the shed blood of the Lord
Jesus Christ, they're actually on the inside and the world doesn't
see it. And they stain. They stain, don't
they? In the children of God, it's
the stain that's permanently there. It's Christ in you, the
hope of glory. Christ crucified, taking up residence
in you is the hope of glory. And that is eternal life. We're
having some baptisms in a couple of weeks' time, Lord willing.
And baptism is, once again, this beautiful picture of the gospel,
isn't it? that in baptism, as with the
Lord's Supper, we actually have a glorious picture of union with
the Lord Jesus Christ. An eternal union, an indivisible
union, a union in Him. And that's what the Lord Jesus
Christ is praying in John 17. These extraordinary words talking
about eternal life. Eternal life is simply living
in union with the Lord Jesus Christ now. Eternal life doesn't
begin when we close our eyes in death here and enter heaven.
Eternal life had no beginning, it has no end, it knows no change
whatsoever. What happens in the new birth
is the revelation of what God has done in eternity. It's the
revelation. And so those to whom he is revealed
can say, They know him. This is what he says in this
verse, isn't he? And this is life eternal, that they might
know thee, the only true God, and Jesus Christ, whom thou hast
sent. and it begins with an and because
he wants us to go back and look at the other two verses and this
I pray that you might have time to do as I do and I go to these
passages of scripture and I draw pictures all over them and that
one is I think the blue is the description of the Father, and
the green is the description of the Son, and the yellow is
something else that I'll have to look at more closely. But
I had to get a new sheet because the old one had worn out. But
it's not worn out, it just hasn't got any room to put any more
things on it. But it's a wonderful thing to do because this is such
an incredibly important passage of Scripture. It is, as Spurgeon
and others said, it's the holy of holies of the Scriptures.
This is the centrepiece, isn't it? The Scriptures exist to declare
the Lord Jesus Christ and Him crucified. And in the Lord Jesus
Christ and Him crucified is the declaration of all of the character
of God Almighty. which is why eternal life is
knowing Thee, the only true God. The only possible reason the
Lord Jesus Christ would say that is because, as He has promised
in this world, there are many gods. I lived in India where
there were millions and millions of them. There are many gods,
there are many Jesuses, There are many Gospels, there are many
spirits, and the overwhelming majority of all of humanity you
meet is deceived. They have no knowledge of God
whatsoever. And the overwhelming majority
of people in religion are just like the overwhelming majority
of the people in the nation Israel when the Lord Jesus Christ came
and declared himself as all the scriptures had declared him.
He was a living, breathing testament to the fulfilment of all of the
Old Testament pictures, just like Simon has taken us so wonderfully
through Leviticus and Hebrews chapter 10. And he declared himself,
he says, I am God. I am God Almighty, doing exactly
what God Almighty had promised and revealing exactly who God
Almighty is. I was talking to someone earlier,
if you actually take the figures that we have from Acts of the
Apostles and the New Testament writings, we know that there
were 120 believers on the day of Pentecost. We know that there
were 500 who met and saw the Lord at one particular time.
So if you add it all up and make it as generous as you possibly
can without any overlaps, in his earthly ministry Less than
700 people believed. Did he lose any glory? So his
glory is about himself. His glory is about his father.
His glory is not about numbers. His glory is not about what people
think. That's why he prays this remarkable
prayer, doesn't he? Let's read these first five verses
and I'll say a few things and then I trust we can participate
in the Lord's Supper with a remembrance of him because we know him. And
we'll talk some more about eternal life. But these words, verse
1 of John chapter 17, these words, all of the words from chapter
13 through to chapter 16, these words spake Jesus and lifted
up his eyes to heaven. I don't know what he saw in heaven,
but it's a wonderful thing to think of what omniscience and
holiness sees in heaven now. You think of the people that
we know that are there now and what they are seeing. You lift
your eyes up to heaven and behold the Lord Jesus Christ on his
throne. and said, Father, the hour has
come, glorify thy son, that thy son may also glorify thee. This prayer begins and finishes
with the glory of God, and the glory of God is based in the
internal covenant of God, and the glory of God toward us is
based in the eternal love of God for his people, they're all
in him. As thou hast given him power over all flesh, Man talks about free will. Whose
will's being done? John 17 just undoes modern religion
in a heartbeat, doesn't it? Thou hast given him power over
all flesh, that he should give eternal life to as many as thou
hast given him. And this is eternal life, that
they might know thee, as you are declared in your son, might
know thee the only true God in Jesus Christ, whom thou hast
sent. I have glorified thee on the
earth. I have finished the work which
thou gavest me to do. Finished. What did he say from
the cross? It is finished. It is accomplished. It is paid in full. I've finished
the work which thou gavest me to do. And now, O Father, glorify
thou me with thine own self, with the glory which I had with
thee before the world was. As you go on in this prayer,
that glory is the glory of Him in covenant union with His people.
That glory is that glory of Him in that extraordinary love relationship
between the members of the Trinity. That glory of us being in Him
before the foundation of the world. And remarkably, He in us. And that's what baptism and that's
what the Lord's Supper pictures, doesn't it? When people go under
the waters of baptism and come to the waters of baptism, it's
a declaration of union with the life of the Lord Jesus Christ.
It's a declaration of union with the death of the Lord Jesus Christ.
And it's a declaration of a risen union into eternal life with
the Lord Jesus Christ. That's what's being declared,
isn't it? That is what baptism is a public confession of. And I'm thrilled that people
want to confess the Lord Jesus Christ publicly. It's an ordinance
that comes from the church, but it's actually a public ordinance.
It's meant to be done outside in public. This is a declaration
from me to the world. that all of the hope of all of
my salvation is bound up entirely in the Lord Jesus Christ. And
the most significant element of baptism is to be immersed
beneath the waters. So I no longer exist in that
sense. I'm no longer seen. It's Christ,
isn't it? Christ who is our life. Christ
who is our life. I want us to take these elements
and I want us to contemplate when you look at your cup. I
want you to contemplate how extraordinary it is that the Lord Jesus Christ
has come. And he's come that we might know
him. that we might know the true God. And if you want to know and have
a wonderful description of the true God, you read the rest of
John chapter 17 and just underline all of the attributes of God
Almighty and the work of the Lord Jesus Christ. 1 John 5.20
says, And we know that the Son of God is come and hath given
us an understanding that we may know Him that is
true, and we are in Him that is true, even in His Son, Jesus
Christ. I'm so pleased that God calls
on us to believe it. We're in Him and He's in us.
And that's exactly what this picture's about. His flesh and drink His blood. And symbolically, we live by
His flesh and we live by His blood. We live. Our life is sustained. And wonderfully, it's internally.
Five minutes after someone's been baptised, no one would know.
No one would know that they've been baptised. Thirty seconds
after you've had the Lord's Supper, no one would know. This is eternal
life. It's this union. It's this communion
that we have with our God. We know. This is something that
believers know. If you're having the Lord's Supper
today, this is something that we know. This is something that
we do in faith, isn't it? There's one requirement, isn't
there, for both those ordained? That's belief in the Lord Jesus
Christ. Just faith. We know that the Son of God has
come and has given us an understanding that we may know Him that is
true and we are in Him that is true, even in His Son, Jesus
Christ. This is the true God. This is
the true God who has in Him a people and who indwells the people. And they're the people He died
for. They're the people He came for. They're the people God the
Father gave Him from all eternity. And in them He gets glory. Isn't that remarkable? He gets
glory. Let's finish and begin our time
of contemplation by reading the last verses out of this prayer. The Lord says in verse 20, Neither
pray I for these alone, but for them also, which shall believe
on me through their word, that they may be one As thou, Father,
art in me, and I in thee, that they also may be one in us, that
the world may believe that thou hast sent me. And the glory which
thou gavest me, I have given them, that they may be one, even
as we are one. I in them, and thou in me, that
they may be made perfect in one, and that the world may know that
thou hast sent me, and hast loved them as thou hast loved me. Father, I will. that they also
whom thou hast given me be with me where I am. That's eternal
life. That's heaven is a person. Heaven
is a person. Be with me where I am, that they
may behold my glory which thou hast given me, for thou lovest
me before the foundation of the world. O righteous Father, the
world has not known thee, but I have known thee, and these
have known that thou hast sent me, and I have declared unto
them thy name. You ought to know the character
of God. You go to the Lord Jesus Christ
and Calvary's tree and these amazing words. Let's pray. Our heavenly Father, We stand amazed at the words
of your dear and precious Son. We just pray, Heavenly Father,
that we would be among those that ask. If we knew the gift
of God, And we knew who it was, who is the gift of God, we would
ask and we pray, Heavenly Father, that you would cause us in faith
to come again and again and again to your throne of grace, that
we might be led by you, Heavenly Father, to glorify your Son in
this world by simply believing on him. And we pray, Heavenly
Father, that you would create opportunities for doors of utterance
to be opened, that we might declare the wonder of your dear and precious
Son and these remarkable words, that we might declare them to
each other, that we might declare them as one to this world, our
Father. Bless us and cause us to see
Christ in us, the hope of glory. Christ crucified, bearing all
of our sins away. Christ only, all of our righteousness
before you. Christ only, our eternal life
in your presence, our Father. What a precious gift, what a
precious giver. Cause us to drink, in simple
childlike faith, our Father, and eat, and him be one with
us. We pray these things for the
good of your people, the glory of your holy name, and the exaltation
of your dear son in us and amongst us, our Father. We pray in Jesus'
name. Amen.