John chapter 17. John 17. This is truly the Lord's
prayer, more so than what is commonly called the Lord's prayer.
This is truly the Lord's intercessory prayer. Let's turn here. I want to show you four requests. This is when our Lord Jesus was
praying just before He went to the cross. And I want to look
at these four requests that He made. These are a great blessing. It would be a great blessing
to you who believe the Lord and trust Him. There's security here. There's comfort here. It's a
tremendous blessing to His people. First of all, the first request
that Christ made to the Father is, glorify Me. Verse 1, These
words spake Jesus, and lifted up His eyes to heaven, and said,
Father, the hour is come, glorify Thy Son. Now, you've heard me
say this many times, as the Son of God, as God, He did not need
to be glorified, because He's God, He's He's the Son of God,
so He didn't need to be glorified as the second person in the Godhead.
But He's praying as our mediator. He's praying as the man who's
representing His people, who is the substitute of His people. And He's praying that God will
hold Him up, help Him as He went to the cross. Because as He stood
as a man, He's not only representing His people. He's not only being
the substitute to take the place of His people. He's literally
the faithful man. The man depending upon God to
strengthen Him and carry Him. Everything you and I do in depending
upon Christ, Christ was doing that depending upon Him. Sin
being the exception. He had no sin. He was not dealing
with any sin of His own. The sin he was dealing with was
the sin of his people. But now look at what it says
here. Here's the reason, the purpose for his request. In verse
1 it says, it says, Father, the hours come, glorify thy son that
thy son also may glorify thee. That's why he was going to the
cross. He was going to glorify every attribute of God. And because
he is the second person in the Trinity, he was going to glorify
every attribute about him. That's what he was going to do.
And there's no way, because he's going to glorify God, there's
no way God's not going to give him the request that he's asking
for here in these full requests. It was promised to Christ in
the covenant before the world began that God the Father would
have a part God the Son would have a part, God the Holy Spirit
would have a part in strengthening Christ the Mediator to go to
the cross, to lay down His life, representing His people. All
of these things were promised to Him just as the Son of God
who came in flesh and took flesh, just as He promised what He would
do on His side of the covenant. It was a covenant between God
the Father and God the Son in Christ Jesus and he's doing it
all for his people. This takes the place of that
covenant of works that Moses was under and Israel was under.
That was a covenant of works from Mount Sinai. And you and I, because most of
us here are Gentiles, we were not under that covenant, but
we were under the covenant that God made with Adam. All men were
under that covenant. We wanted the covenant God made
with Adam because he was our first representative. And so
that covenant was between God and Adam. You and I were just
being represented. And then when Christ came, that
covenant was between Christ and God. And so his people were just
being represented. That was all that was taking
place. So when he comes to you and he says, I'll make an everlasting
covenant with him, when he comes to you in grace and reveals what
he's done, and he shows you that he's done this for you, when
he makes that everlasting covenant of grace, he doesn't give you
something to do. He's showing you it's all finished. It's all
done. That's the glorious good news
of the gospel, that he did it. He finished it. Now look here.
Here's the reason that he made the request, verse 2. He said,
As thou hast given him power over all flesh, that he should
give eternal life to as many as thou hast given him. He wanted
to glorify the Father, and then he prays that the Father has
given him power over all flesh. He has all absolute dominion. And it says here that He should
give eternal life to as many as the Father has given Him.
God the Father has given the Son, as our mediator in surety,
all power, all authority, all dominion. He has given Him all
dominion. Let me read this to you from
John chapter 3. If you want to look there, John
3, verse 35. It says, John 3, 35, The Father
loveth the Son, and hath given all things into His hand. See, we need to understand this
thing is about God the Father being glorified and God the Son
being glorified. Christ Jesus, His Son being glorified. You and I aren't going to receive
any glory. This is the difference between
true religion and false religion. False religion, all over the
world. If it's in Christianity or out,
it always gives you something to do, gives you something to
glory in. God's religion, true religion, doesn't give a sinner
anything to glory in. This is between God the Father
and God the Son. This is how the triune God is
being glorified in Christ. Now listen, since He has power
over all flesh, why then, that's what it says, you can read it
there, He's got power over all flesh, why then, when Christ
walked this earth, why didn't He just give every sinner that
He came up to, why didn't He give them eternal life? He had
power over all flesh, why didn't He just walk up and give everybody
eternal life? Why today is He not giving everybody
eternal life? Well, it says there that He has
power over all flesh, that He may give eternal life to as many
as the Father has given to Him. Do you see that? To as many as
the Father has given to Him. Now, I want you to notice this
in John 17. Look at verse 2 there. He says
that He should give eternal life to as many as thou hast given
Him. Then look at verse 6. He said, I've manifested thy
name unto the men which thou gavest me out of the world. You see, this is God the Father
giving these men to Christ. Look down at verse 12. He says,
while I was in the world, while I was with them in the world,
I kept them in thy name. Those that thou gavest me, I've
kept. You see, they were given to Christ. Look at verse 24. He says, Father,
I will that they also whom thou hast given me be with me where
I am. Do you see this? This people
that he has, that Christ came to lay down his life for, was
a people that was given to him by the Father. That's all through
the Scripture. One of the most common titles
that you'll find in the Scripture, that God's people go by in the
scriptures is the elect, the elect of God. Almost every greeting
in every epistle, you'll find them called the elect of God,
or at the end of it, the elect of God. That's what it means. We're given to Christ by God
the Father. He could do with us what He would.
Now, when He chose His people, it was not based on anything
good or evil in us at all. But, when the Lord chose His
people, He did know what He was going to do. His whole purpose
of grace was to send forth Christ into a world where sin was. He
knew the end from the beginning. He knew what He was going to
do. He declared from ancient times the things that were not
yet done. Saying, my counsel will stand.
I'll do all my pleasure. He knew what He was going to
do. And so, His choosing His people had nothing to do with
us at all, it was by His grace. There's not one sinner better
than another sinner, that's just not so. But those that He passes
by, it's not unrighteousness in God for Him to pass them by
because they actually sinned against Him. Everybody, me, you,
everybody sinned against Him. So, I've used that analogy, if
you've got a prison full of people that have sinned, and committed
crimes and say the whole prisons are on death row. It's not unrighteousness
for a governor to give one of them a pardon and not give all
of them a pardon. That's not unrighteousness. And neither
is it for God to save some and not save others. But these people
were given to Christ. That's who He came for. Now look,
do you want eternal life? Do you want eternal life? Some
people hear the message of election and they get all mad. Well, do
you want eternal life? Do you know what eternal life
is? Let's see if you want eternal life. Here's what eternal life
is. Verse 3. This is life eternal, that they
might know Thee, the only true God, and Jesus Christ, whom Thou
hast sent. Now there's eternal life. Some
think that eternal life is an experience in religion. Some
people are still, they're waiting for something to happen. They're
waiting for something climactic to happen so that they've got
eternal life now. And some people are looking back
to something that they think has already happened. And that's
their experience. And they think that's eternal
life. Others think eternal life is a moral, religious reform. You turn over a new leaf, join
the church, get baptized, start going to church, stop hanging
out with the old crowd you used to hang out with, clean up your
act, and all that. You turn a leaf over, you just
got the same leaf, it's just turned over. And so, we cannot,
it's not a moral reform, that's not eternal life. Some think
eternal life is something you get when you die. You don't get
it till you die. Then you go and you get to live
in a big mansion and drive with luxurious cars and fulfill the
lust of your flesh that you didn't get to fulfill while you was
here because you was too poor to do it. That's not eternal
life. You know what? Eternal life is
knowing God in Christ. That's eternal life. Eternal
life is knowing God in Christ. This is life eternal, that they
might know Thee, the only true God, and Jesus Christ, whom Thou
hast sent. Eternal life is spiritual life. It's given to dead sinners that
don't have it, that can't muster it up, that can't get it any
other way. God gives it to dead sinners. This is how God the
Holy Spirit is glorified. He gives eternal life. So he
gets all the glory for giving his child eternal life. For giving
us spiritual life. And we're given faith and repentance.
Everything we need to know God. We're given this by God. Eternal
life, it's not a... Some people think, well, you've
got to come to a certain level of doctrine and understanding.
Some of you have asked to be baptized before. And I've said
to you, let's wait a little while. And you thought, why did he tell
me that? And the reason is you came talking to him about how
much you know. You came talking to him about
how much you've learned. That's not eternal life. That's not
eternal life. Eternal life is to know Christ.
It's to know Him. It's not a church creed. It's
not knowing church history. I had a man email me last week
and there was about six or seven questions that he wanted to know.
Make sure we measured up to his standards so he could grace us
with his presence. And I emailed him back one answer. Christ is all. And I haven't
heard from him since. I haven't heard from him since.
Eternal life is not even knowing that there is a God. That's not
eternal life. Eternal life is knowing God. This is life eternal that they
might know Thee. Now, it's a personal acquaintance
with God. Only God can give it. I can't
even explain it. You just really can't even describe
it. It's just that God keeps you.
God, you know He's doing it because you know you wouldn't otherwise.
You wouldn't keep on. I sometimes think about it. I
think knowing myself and my sin and my rebellion, I think there's
no way on this earth I would still be sitting under the sound
of the gospel. I'd still be preparing messages. I'd still be bringing messages
to you. There's no way I'd be doing that if it wasn't for God
keeping me. I just couldn't. And you know
it, you know it. This week I got a, I was off
last week with the trip down to Arkansas and I got a new computer
and I got a new program on my computer. I got all these new
things. And when you stop working for
a little while in the scriptures and you start back, it's like
a car that's been set up for a year and you're trying to get
it started and it's just cold as it can be. It's easier to
keep one running when it's warm and keep it going than it is
to let it set up and try to get it started again. Plus, put on
top of that, you've got a computer and you've got new programs and
all these things. And I spent a lot of time this
week looking at just black ink on a white page. And it's been
for the past couple of weeks, I couldn't write fast enough.
It's like the Spirit was just pouring the message into me,
and I couldn't write it down fast enough. It was just coming
like that. This week, He just showed me, you can't do it without
me. You can't do it without me. But when He gives it, you know
this is the Lord. It's a personal acquaintance
with God. And when you know God, when you
know the Lord Jesus, you know God. You know God the Father,
God the Son, God the Holy Spirit. Look at John 14 and verse 6. Jesus said unto him, I am the
way, the truth, and the life. No man cometh unto the Father
but by me. If you had known Me, you should
have known My Father also. You see there, if you knew Me,
you'd know My Father also. And from henceforth you know
Him and have seen Him. And Philip said unto Him, Lord,
show us the Father, and it sufficeth us. And Jesus said unto him,
Have I been so long time with you, and yet thou hast not known
Me, Philip? He that hath seen Me hath seen
the Father. And how sayest thou then, Show
us the Father? We know, this is what John said,
that the Son of God has come and has given us an understanding
that we may know Him that is true. And we're in Him that is
true, even in His Son Jesus Christ. This is the true God and eternal
life. Now, here's what Christ came
to do and here's what He did. He's asking God, glorify me.
And here's what He came to do and here's what He did. Verse
4. He said, I've glorified thee on the earth. I have finished
the work which thou gavest me to do. When did God give Christ
this work to do? He said the hours come. How did
He know that hours come? God gave Him this work to do
in eternity. Before God made anything, He
gave Him this work to do. The foundation of this world
is the covenant of God that He made with His Son. That's why
the world was made. That's why it was created. in
eternity. Why did God give Christ this
work to do? Why didn't He give it to me or
you or some other person on this earth? Because we sinned and
fell into sin and death and transgression. There was no way we could do
this work. And plus, if God's going to get all the glory, He's
going to be just and the justifier, God's the one that's got to do
the work. And He's doing the work in the person of His Son.
Well, did He do the work? When Christ came, did He do the
work? He said, I have finished the work. Again on the cross
He cried, it is finished. It's finished. What did He finish? He's the only man that ever walked
this earth that loved God, obeyed God, fulfilled God's will, perfectly
kept the law, had no sin, knew no sin, thought no sin, spoke
no sin, did no sin, from the moment He was born until he said,
it's finished, and he gave up the ghost. He was obedient to
God, start to finish. That's the work he came to do,
to establish a righteousness. And that's what he did. He glorified
God's law, he glorified God's will, he glorified God's justice,
and he glorified God's grace. That's why he came. He did it
so that God would be just. and that He would be the justifier.
I know I tell you this every time. Look at Romans 3. This
is the gospel, brethren. Romans 3. Romans 3. He gave that people to His Son.
And Christ came forth. And look what He did. Romans
3, verse 24. It says, "...were justified freely
by His grace, through the redemption that is in Christ Jesus, whom
God has set forth to be a propitiation through faith in His blood. He
is the mercy seat. That's the place where God said,
I'll meet with you. You want to meet God? You want
to come to God? got to come to Christ, got to
come to the mercy seat, to the meeting place, to the propitiation,
to declare His righteousness. That's why He sent Him. This
is about God's righteousness, how He can be just and justify
a sinner. That's the gospel. Romans 1 said,
the gospel concerning His Son, the righteousness of God. He
said, I'm not ashamed of the gospel, for therein is the righteousness
of God revealed. This is the righteousness we're
talking about. He set Christ forth to declare His righteousness
for the remission of sins that are passed through the forbearance
of God. To declare, I say at this time,
His righteousness, that He might be just. You see, if you got
a law, and that law says that William Keller has got to die.
That's what the law says. He's sinned, he's got to die.
Well, God's got to be just, and He's got to pour out wrath and
judgment upon William Keller, he's got to die. He's got to
die. And that goes for you, and that
goes for me, and that goes for everybody in this world. We've
sinned against God. The wages of sin is death. We've
got to die. For God to be just, and that's
the issue here, is for God to be just, you have to die. Now,
God has arranged it in His grace to where His people are going
to die. They have died already. in his
son. That's why his son came forth.
You remember whenever the scripture says Levi paid tithes in Abraham because
he was in Abraham's loins. When Abraham paid tithes, Levi
paid tithes. Levi wasn't born years and years
and years later. How did he pay tithes when Abraham
paid tithes? He was in his loins. When Christ
came forth, His people were in Him. His people were in Him. So just like you children sitting
here, you were in your Father when He married your mother,
when He was getting His education in high school, and when as yet
you didn't even exist. Christ Jesus, His people were
in Him. Seemingly, we were in Him as
His seed when before us yet we were ever born. So that what
He did, we did. And when He went to the cross,
God laid sin on Him. Not sins. He laid on Him the
sin. He was made sin. He laid on Him
the iniquity. Sin itself. He laid it on Him
to put it away. And so he punished Christ so
that Christ died that living eternal death on the cross. He
died. And so now it says there that
he might be just and the justifier. You see Romans 3.26 that he might
be just and the justifier. That means that when Christ died,
everybody Christ died for, all those that the Father gave to
Him, Christ justified them. God justified every one of them
when he died. He's the justifier. He's the
justifier. You're not the justifier. I'm
not the justifier. Some people think that they justify
themselves by their faith. The only way faith is said to
be, we're justified through faith, by faith, is that faith lays
hold of him who justified us. The object of our faith, Christ,
who's justified us. Christ is just. He poured out
His judgment on His Son and all His people died in His Son. And
then He's the justifier because He justified us of our sins.
When He died under the law, the law couldn't say anything else
to us. It couldn't say anything else
to us. I was watching a documentary
about these fellas who had broken the law down in Mexico, in Juarez,
Mexico. And the police were after them.
They spent hours and hours and hours after these guys. And they
were finally just about to close in on them. They were just about
to catch them. And somebody killed them. And they were so disappointed. You know why? These men were
lawmen. And they couldn't touch him then.
The law had executed its fullest penalty upon them. And they couldn't
touch Him. That's what happened when Christ
died for His people. Now the law can't touch them
because the law is satisfied. You see that? And He does this
to them that believe on the Lord Jesus. Everybody that believe
on the Lord Jesus. This is the common case of them
all. They were all justified by Christ. Now look here, verse
27. Where's boasting then? It's excluded. There's no room to boast. By
what law? What law, what principle excludes
my boasting? Is it the law of works? No. If you did something to justify
yourself, if I did something to justify myself, when's the
last time you did anything good and you didn't brag about it? Nobody can say a word because
we all brag about it. We can't let it get out. We can't
let it keep it in. We got to let it get out. We
figured out ways to let other people know about our good deeds
without really acting like we're letting them know. Just so we
can let it get out. You see, it's not by the law
of works. No, no. But by the law of faith. Faith merely says, I believe
He justified me. I believe He's the one that justified
me. Alright, now let's go back to
our text in John 17. We're not going to get past the
first request. John 17. So the work that He finished,
He brought in righteousness for His people. Legally, we're righteous
before the law. He accomplished eternal redemption
from the curse of the law for His people. The law can't say
a thing to us anymore. And He's going to give eternal
life to everyone the Father gave to Him. And He shall not lose
one. How can I make that statement?
How can I make such a bold declaration that Christ shall give eternal
life, faith to everyone for whom Christ died? It's the only reason
I stand here and preach. I wouldn't preach if this wasn't
true, because it'd be a waste of time. If I was waiting on
sinners to do something, it'd be an utter waste of time, because
sinners won't do anything. Well, you understand this. I
want you to get this. I know you see a lot of religions
in the world. I know you see all kinds, shapes,
forms, and fashions, and you're thinking to yourself, Preacher,
what makes you so sure about your religion and saying you're
right? What about all these other people?
You just take this one test right here. I'm telling you, take this
one test to every religion you go to. They all put you on doing
something. Every one of them, they give
you something to do. Every single one of them. And
if it gives you something to do, that's the principle of works.
Now you can glory. Now you can glory. You know why
they do? Because they're all man-made.
Every one of them. And man's gonna give himself
something to glory in. Oh, his God can help him out. His little Jesus can help him
out. But he can't do it all. Because
the man's got to have something to boast in. I'm telling you,
the gospel I'm preaching to you says you can't do diddly-squat
and you don't have a thing to do with it. God does it all. God does it all. This is how
I'm certain that He's going to call out everybody for whom Christ
died. It would take God ceasing to
be holy and just. for God to condemn just one of
those that He gave to Christ because He's already condemned
them in Christ our substitute. He's already done it. So it's
upon the foundation of His finished work that our Savior prays and
He says, Now, O Father, glorify Thou me with Thine own self with
the glory which I had with Thee before the world was. It's on
that foundation. There's no other way. So, what
am I preaching for? Because he has a people he died
for. And he's going to send forth
this gospel into the world. And we're sending it forth on
the internet. We're sending it forth on the...
by me going and preaching places. We've got missionaries in the
world. We're on the audio and video and all these different
things. Why? Because he's got a people. I
don't know who they are. I don't dare try to determine
who they are, because I'd mess it up. I'd pick those that aren't
His and pass by those that are. But He sends this message, and
by this message, He enters that heart and gives them life, gives
them faith, and the only way you know you're His is one day
you find out, I believe every word of this. I believe Him,
and I believe on Him, and I'm I'm trusting Him alone. That's
how you know. That's how you know. You just
can't do it otherwise. And I'll tell you one of the
ways that He makes you know He's done it for you is you hate it
until He does it. Now, carnal minds enmity against
God. That means you'll hate this message right up until the time
that He makes you love Him. I've seen that. I've watched
some of you sit here. Carol, I'm going to tell on you.
I watched Carol sit here and act like She didn't care. She had no care about this whatsoever. She didn't want to be here. She
was here because her mom and daddy wanted her to be here. Then I
watched her, as I'm preaching, it looked like she was mad as
a sweat hornet. And then I watched her start
smiling. She went from mad to sad to glad,
rejoicing. That's right. And also busy noticing
her, I didn't even notice her mama, and her mama called me
up and told me she won't be baptized. I'm telling you, the Lord just
does this. He works in your heart through this gospel. And he gets
you, and he don't ever let you go. I pray he'll bless that. All right, we'll look at these
others a little later sometime. Let's stand together, brethren. Father, we thank you for your
word. We thank you that you're just and holy, that you always
do that which is right, that you always do everything according
to your justice. Even your mercy towards your
people is just mercy. Lord, we need mercy. We need
grace. We cannot save ourselves. And
Lord, we're thankful that you do it in a way that's just so
that we know we have the assurance it can't ever, ever be undone.
Lord, we pray for our brethren. We pray for those that are going
through trials and troubles and are in need of your comfort and
your grace, your dying grace. Lord, we pray for our brethren
that we don't know yet, the ones that you haven't called yet.
We pray, Lord, that you'd give them a heart, that you'd give
them an understanding, that you'd draw them to hear your gospel.
And Lord, we pray now that you'd bless this work, continue to
bless it, continue to give us an understanding heart and grow
us in the knowledge and the grace of God. We pray you do it for
your honor, for your glory, for Christ's honor, for Christ's
glory, that you get all the praise, all the recognition. And Lord,
we just beat trophies of your grace and what you've done for
us. Forgive us our sins, Father, we ask it in Christ's name, amen.