John chapter 17. This is, without
a doubt, one of the richest portions of Scripture that you'll ever
read in the Word of God. John chapter 17. It is the longest
prayer that is recorded in the Scriptures, the longest prayer
that our Lord offered to the Father during His earthly ministry. There are some people who call
this his high priestly prayer. And indeed it is that. It is
actually the Lord's Prayer. Here we find the veil that hides
the presence of God. We find it opened. And we are
admitted into the holiest of all. Here we approach the secret
place of God's tabernacle. We would be wise, as it were,
in our hearts to take our shoes off remembering that this is
holy ground. You'll just never read a more
special portion of Scripture in the Word of God than John
chapter 17 because here our Lord makes bare His heart and we learn
so much about Him from this portion of Scripture. This evening we're
just going to get an introduction to the Lord's Prayer, and then
in a few Wednesday nights we'll cover this verse by verse. Our Lord Jesus was often engaged
as a praying man during His ministry. Indeed, this is how the passage
begins, John 17 verse 1, these words spake Jesus, and lifted
up his eyes to heaven and said, Father, the hour has come. And
then he hears his petition, glorify thy son, that thy son also may
glorify thee. Here he goes to the Father in
prayer. I think it's especially noteworthy
that our Lord Jesus, it seems as though every significant event
in his life, and actually it was nothing insignificant in
the life of Christ, but the big steps that he took, it always
involved our Savior entering into prayer. In the book of Luke
we read, Luke chapter 3 and verse 21, when he was baptized, Luke
tells us this, Jesus was baptized and he was praying. while he
was being baptized. Immediately upon beginning his
public ministry, and Mark tells us that the Lord Jesus went forth
to preach the gospel, but Mark also tells us in Mark 1.34, he
rose up a great while before day, he went out, he departed
into a solitary place, and there he prayed. He prayed at his baptism. As he began his public ministry,
as he began to preach the gospel, he committed himself to prayer
before he ever selected his 12 disciples. The scripture says
he went up to a mountain to pray, and he did so all night to the
Father. Luke chapter six and verse 12
says that. Before he was transfigured, You
remember when he went up on the Mount of Transfiguration, and
Peter, James, and John went with him, and they witnessed the transfiguration
of our Lord Jesus, even as Peter mentioned in his second epistle
in 2 Peter 1. But the scripture says that before
he was transfigured, he was engaged in prayer. Prayer. And actually, when he was dying,
his dying breath, that was a prayer. Father, into thy hands I commend
my spirit. And of all of these prayers,
there's just a brief mention that there's not much said about
The Scriptures don't go into any details about those prayers. But right here in John 17, this
is a prayer in detail. It is verbatim. That means the
Spirit of God, God had ordained that every word that the Savior
uttered to the Father It's recorded for the benefit of all of God's
people through all of the years. Because you see, He is addressing
the Father. And He does speak of the Father's
glory, and that's certainly a significant portion of the prayer, but He
also prays regarding Himself. And then He prays regarding His
disciples, those immediate 11 men who loved Him, men for whom
He was going to lay down His life. But more than that, at
the end of the prayer in John 17, He prays for all of those
who will come to believe on Him through the word of these men.
That is through the Word of God. So we enter in here into the
very holiest of holies. And we hear the Savior speaking
to the Father. It's like the Lord Jesus had
ordained, indeed it had been written in the book of Providence
before the world ever began, that this prayer we would all
listen to. And we would enter in, at least
to a little degree, into how He felt, into his requests to
the Father, his petitions to the Father, and he does offer
these petitions to the Father, and as we shall see, there are
several requests that he makes in these prayers, in this prayer,
and we're thankful for this, that all of his requests are
going to be answered, because God always hears him, and he
always prayed according to the will of God. So this is really full of instruction
for all of the people of God. And as those other times that
I mentioned when our Savior prayed, He was facing perhaps a crisis
or some very significant event in His life. This is the most
significant event that's facing Him. This is the night before
His death. This is when He's going to lay
down His life for us. This is when He's going to bring
in everlasting righteousness for all of His people. This is
when He's going to wash all of our sins away. And before that
significant great event, the greatest event of time in eternity,
before that ever comes to pass, we find Him in prayer. And listen, since our Savior
felt it necessary to enter into fellowship and communion and
petitions to the Father before these significant events, and
He's God, He's the Son of God, He's praying as the servant of
Jehovah, but He's the perfect one. If He felt the need to pour
out His heart to the Father, how much more should we? And do we not read in the book
of James that the effectual fervent prayer of a righteous man availeth
much? Listen, we're righteous people,
we're justified people. We're righteous in the Lord,
our righteousness. I know all of our righteousness
is as filthy rags, but His isn't. This is the perfect righteousness
that God demands, and He has imputed that righteousness to
us, that righteousness which He worked out and established
by His substitutionary death upon the cross of Calvary. And
before He goes to this greatest event of all time, to deal with
the justice of God on our behalf, He pours out His heart to God
in prayer. and lets us listen. He lets us
listen. And I would give you, I would
make this recommendation to each of you tonight. When you get
a home, read this prayer. Just read it yourself. That's
what, Actually, last week, I spent a good bit of time just reading
this, praying that God would put it in my mind and put it
in my heart. And I would recommend you do
the same thing. There's such beauty in this. There's such
significance in this. This is a mighty prayer, prayed
by our Almighty Savior. And I'm interested in what He's
got to say. I'm interested in the way He
approached the Father. And indeed, He does speak to
him as Father. He speaks of Him as the Holy
Father. He speaks of Him as the Righteous
Father. And as he begins, he says, Father,
the hour has come. He taught us to pray that way.
Our Father. You see, we're in the same family.
He has our elder brother. And he's never been ashamed to
associate with us. He calls us brethren. Brethren. I was with Scott Richardson one
time. We were preaching together at a Bible conference. And we
were both standing out in the vestibule greeting people as
they came out. In fact, we were in Cherokee
years ago and some of y'all went to the Cherokee Bible conference,
I'm sure. But anyway, he was greeting people and I was greeting
people. And somebody came out and he said, how you doing tonight,
brother? That's what Scott said. How are
you doing tonight, brother? And this fellow said, how do
you know I'm your brother? You don't even know me. Scott
said, you're my brother in Adam or you're my brother in Christ.
I'll get you either way. Either way, but he is our elder
brother, is he not? Our great and glorious brother.
And as he addresses the father, Opening up His heart to the Father
in prayer? So do we. And listen, here's
another amazing thing. As interested as God the Father
was in this prayer of His only begotten Son, He is equally interested
in our prayers. Isn't that amazing? Because He
loves the Lord Jesus Christ as He loves us. Or maybe I should
say he loves us as he loves the Lord Jesus Christ. We're loved
with an everlasting love, with a divine love. And here he is,
he prays to the Father on our behalf. Now, that which is usually called
the Lord's Prayer, of course, is just a model prayer. The Savior gave that to his disciples. In fact, if you wanna go over
to, and I read that from Matthew 6, but go over to Luke, if you
would, Luke chapter 11. And this is a different occasion,
but essentially our Lord, he breaks this down to a briefer
version of that which he gave the disciples prayer in Matthew
chapter 6. But here's the way it all came
about. Luke chapter 11, verse one. And it came to pass, as he was
praying in a certain place, when he ceased, one of his disciples
said unto him, Lord, teach us to pray. As John also taught
his disciples. And then briefly he kind of,
he gives us An abbreviated version, if you will, of what the instructions
they gave in Matthew chapter six. Now listen, as God, men
prayed to Christ. They asked blessings of Him,
favors of Him, mercy from Him. As God, men prayed to Him. As man, he prayed to the Father. Quite amazing. As God, men addressed Him, men
requested of Him. They came to Him, the woman who
had the daughter who was grievously vexed of the devil. She said,
Lord, have mercy, the thief on the cross. Lord, remember me. They recognize He's God. And
as God, they spoke to Him and made their requests. But here
is the man, Christ Jesus, and He makes requests to the Father. Just kind of a side note, and
if you want to make a note of it mentally or whatever, you
can remember this. You know, Matthew, Mark, Luke,
and John, the four evangelists, we call them, these men, of course,
they recorded so many of the life events of our Lord Jesus
during, Luke is the only one who recorded when he was, what
he did when he was 12 years old, but these are men who wrote about
our Lord Jesus, but it is left to Luke for this man to speak
more than any other man of our Lord being occupied in prayer. Occupied in prayer. He was a
man committed to prayer. And the disciples saw him pray. And they said to him, teach us
to pray. And you know, I thought about
this. That's a good prayer right there, isn't it? That's a really
good prayer request. And I would say of all of us
here this evening, I can't think of a better prayer to pray than
this for all of us who are the Lord's people. Lord, teach us
to pray. teaches to pray. And they said,
they added this, just like John taught his disciples to pray.
Our desire is, we want to really truly pray. You know, all of God's people,
all Christians, we pray. There's no question about that.
In the book of Luke, you have the publican who went to the
temple. He said, God, be merciful to
me, the sinner. Be propitious to me. Be a mercy
seat for me, I'm a sinner. That is a wonderful prayer, a
wonderful prayer. Brief and to the point. I fear and I criticize myself,
I'm certainly not above criticism, and I'm not above criticism from
myself. I fear sometimes I get too wordy
in my prayers, rather than just dealing with the issues at hand. And I've heard, and this is no
criticism to anybody who prays publicly here, but I've heard
men get up and go on and on, and they pray about everything. our country and our soldiers. Well, those are things that you
should pray about in private. That's the kind of praying you
do in your closet. But for those of us who are often
engaged in public prayer, we want to get to the very heart
of the issues and not use vain repetitions. Don't use vain,
don't say the same thing essentially over and over and over again.
Because as we just studied back there, just read back in Matthew
chapter 6, your heavenly Father knows the things you have need
of. Don't use the same empty phrases. The false prophets of
Babel. Back in 1 Kings chapter 18, you
remember, The Scripture says, they said,
O Baal, hear us. They said that, the Scripture
says, from morning till noon. That's all they said. O Baal,
hear us. O Baal, hear us. O Baal, hear
us. First of all, Baal can't hear
them. But that's just an empty, vain repetition. It's useless. It's useless. And when it comes
to those of us who know God, we don't want to use the same
empty, vain repetition, saying the same thing over and over
again. God knows what we need. Get to
the heart of the issue. When the Apostle Paul went to
Ephesus to preach, The people heard him preaching and they,
with one voice, cried out for two hours to Diana. They said,
Great is Diana of the Ephesians. And they did that for two hours.
For two hours. Great is Diana of the Ephesians. Don't use vain, empty phrases.
And don't be long-winded in your prayers, in public prayers. These
men, watch it, here's their desire, teach us to pray. Lord, teach
us to pray. This is an acknowledgment that
Jesus of Nazareth is the Lord. Teach us to pray. There was a
blessedness that these men got and an instruction that they
observed, not only here in Luke chapter 11, but certainly in
John chapter 17, as they watched the Lord Jesus pray, as they
listened to His prayer, and it so lifted them, it so blessed
them, their immediate response was, Lord, teach us to pray.
Have you ever been in a meeting, in a worship service, and somebody
prayed, and you thought to yourself, I wish I could pray like that.
I have. Lord, that was such a blessing.
The brother blessed me so much when he prayed. Lord, teach me
to pray. That's the way it was with the
disciples. But listen, they weren't listening just to a mere man.
They were listening to the Son of Man. And it so elevated their
spirits and made them rejoice. And they were growing in grace
as they listened to this one who was their master, their savior,
their redeemer. They said, Lord, teach us to
pray. We wanna pray like you pray. Boy, I do, don't you? We
all do. I wanna be absolutely honest
to God. That's what our Lord was. The
Lord Jesus in John chapter 17, He said, Glorify thy son that
thy son also may glorify thee. We pray, Lord, glorify Yourself. That's what we want tonight.
We want God to be glorified. We want Christ Jesus to be glorified. And we honor the Spirit of grace.
We're thankful for His work in us and to us. Oh God, glorify
Yourself. That's our prayer. And do us
good. Help us. Help us. And here is their request as
John taught his disciples. And John the Baptist taught his
disciples how to pray. But we've got a much better master
than those men had. John the Baptist would have been
a great teacher, wouldn't he? He had been a great professor. But John the Baptist is no Lord
Jesus Christ. Because John the Baptist, though
he was filled with the Holy Ghost from his mother's womb, he's
a sinner saved by grace. He's born in sin like all of
us. He had to be redeemed. His sins had to be washed away.
He had to be forgiven by the grace of God due to the sacrifice
of Christ himself. The disciples said, teach us
to pray like John taught his disciples. Whoa, man, you've
got a much better teacher than John the Baptist. And so do we. And here I am trying to teach
us tonight. and making an effort to give
a little instruction to benefit us who are gathering together
and who are the people of God to give us some instruction in
this matter of prayer. But it's nothing like the instruction
that the Lord Jesus gives. Go back to John 17. Let me just
make a couple of more comments and I'll let you go for tonight. Let me tell you about John 17.
It is a follow-up to John chapter 13. This is quite remarkable. You remember John chapter 13,
the Savior washed the disciples' feet, right? You remember reading
that in John chapter 13. He was engaged in service to
them, washing their feet. Now in John 17, the master's
in the presence of God. He's speaking with the Father.
And in each of these, in our Lord washing the disciples' feet,
and here he is praying to the Father, in each of these we see
the actions of our great high priest. But the services he's
rendering are different. And both of them present a wonderful
representation of our Lord Jesus. In chapter 13, He's looking down
at the feet of His disciples, washing their feet. Can you imagine
the Lord of glory washing the feet of these men? And He's looking
down at their feet. In John chapter 17, watch it
now, He lifted up His eyes to heaven. He's looking in the face
of God. He's looking in the face of the
invisible God. Christ is looking at the Father.
And here He is before the Father, submissive as the perfect servant
of Jehovah. In John 13, we see our Master
as the servant of His people, doing for His people. dealing
with his people, looking down, looking down upon feet, feet
that are dirty, the dirty feet of dirty sinners, that is, sinners
who are dirty by nature, who are washed in his blood now.
And he said, you're all, you're clean, but not all of you. Judas
wasn't clean. But here in John chapter 17,
he's praying to the Father. And this is the way I picture
it. In John 13, He's got His hand on His disciples, washing
their feet. In John chapter 17, He's got
His hand on the very throne of God. And you know what? He's the one who brings us together. He's all in all to us. He's here,
He's there, He's everything in between. He's our mediator. He's our advocate and you can't
come into the presence of God apart from the Lord Jesus. He's the ladder, Jacob's ladder. Certainly it aptly pictured our
Lord Jesus. He's the one who spans the distance
between earth and heaven. Here we see him in his mediatorial
character. And I'll give you this. The previous
chapters, especially chapters 14, 15, and 16, we beheld Christ
Jesus dealing with his people in the name of the Father, opening
up the counsels of God to his people. And now we find him dealing
with the Father on behalf of his people. He deals with his
people on the behalf of the Father in his message. And now he deals
with the Father on behalf of his people. And one last thing. In John 14, 15, and 16, we see
him preaching. In John 17, we see him pray. And I'll tell you, we preach,
we sow the seed, and then we pray, Lord, water the seed. water and the seed. And the two
go together, preaching and praying. And before we sing our last hymn,
let me close in prayer. Let's bow our heads. We thank
you, Father, for this great and wonderful prayer that you have
left on record for us, the Lord's Prayer in John chapter 17. And
as we shall see as we visit this and as we study and learn and
as we glean from the scriptures here, we will see our glorious
Savior in his true person. We'll see him in the character
of the son of man who's been exalted due to finishing the
work that you gave him to do. And we shall see him as the very
concerned mediator. because he prays for his people.
And indeed, toward the end of the prayer, he prayed that all of your people would someday
be with him, that they might behold his glory. And we know,
Father, that when he prays that prayer for each of us, that will
be the moment when we experience an absence from this body and
we will be present with the Lord. So thank you for leaving this
on record for us. Bless as we all read this together
tonight, each one of us individually, as we close out the day. What a wonderful way to close
it out, to read John chapter 17. We thank you for all things
in the Savior's name, amen.