Yet another day with a different
date. I know many of you probably have
considered changes in this new year. My encouragement to you
is do them now. Do them now. If they are befitting
to your life and good and honoring unto the Lord, do them now. John
17 will begin here this morning I'd like to read a large portion
of this, if you do not mind, verse 19 verses, and then I'd
like to talk about the first five. John 17. When Jesus had spoken these words,
he lifted up his eyes to heaven and said, Father, the hour has
come. Glorify your son that the son may glorify you, since you
have given him authority over all flesh to give eternal life
to all whom you have given him. And this is eternal life, that
they know you, the only true God and Jesus Christ whom you
have sent. I glorified you on earth, having
accomplished the work that you gave me to do. And now, Father,
glorify me in your own presence with the glory that I had before
the world existed. I've manifested your name to
the people whom you gave me out of the world. Yours they were,
and you gave them to me, and they have kept your word. Now
they know that everything that you have given me is from you,
for I've given them the words that you gave me, and they have
received them and have come to know in the truth that I have
come from you. and they have believed that you
have sent me. I am praying for them. And I'm not praying for
the world, but for those who you have given me, for they are
yours. All mine are yours, and all yours
are mine, and I am glorified in them. And I'm no longer in
the world, but they are in the world, and I'm coming to you.
Holy Father, keep them in your name, which you have given me,
that they may be one, even as we are one. While I was with them, I kept
them in your name, which you have given me. I've guarded them
and not one of them has been lost except the son of destruction
that the scripture might be fulfilled. But now I'm coming to you. And
these things I speak in the world, that they may have my joy fulfilled
in themselves. I've given them your word, and
the world has hated them because they are not of the world, just
as I am not of the world. I do not ask that you take them
out of the world, but that you keep them from the evil one.
They are not of the world, just as I am not of the world. Sanctify
them in your truth. Your word is truth. As you sent
me into the world, so I have sent them into the world, and
for their sake I consecrate myself that they also may be sanctified
in truth." Now there's a lot there, and it is going to take
us a good season of teaching to expound upon that. But more
importantly, I pray not just that you are here on the Lord's
Day each and every week, but I pray that you read this text
Because I don't know about you, when I continue in the reading
of John's gospel, it's not a new section every day. It's not,
okay, here's the new section that I'm reading. It's like,
so many of us in our culture take the Bible in so small of
pieces. We have segmented it to the point
where we miss the narrative. And this in John 17 is a continuation
of the narrative of Jesus with his disciples in the upper room,
which began in chapter 14. When you read this, you need
to recognize that Jesus has just finished talking with his disciples.
In the same breath, they're in the upper room. Now, some people
would argue, well, he looked at the sky. He was outside. No,
he lifted his eyes upward, like we would lay our heads downward
to pray in the first century praying. You looked up with your
eyes open. The opposite would be we, you know, it's just a
cultural thing. But if you miss this, then you're
not going to hear what Jesus is saying to the Father. He is
actualizing by prayer everything that He's just taught. Everything
that He's just promised. Everything that He has ever understood
about His earthly ministry is now coming to fulfillment. And
what has Jesus done? He's taught, He's done miracles,
He's obeyed the will of the Father. He's taught concerning the father
and the redemption of his people given to him by the father. But
now he lays all of this at the foot of the father. And he rests
in his assurance, knowing that the promises of his father are
certain and true. And he walks without fear. He
walks in full understanding and full knowledge of his work so
that it will be done. And as you'll see over the next
few weeks, John 17, while it is extremely important for the
Christian, and while it is a very deep doctrinal opportunity for
us to learn, and we're going to go into some of those things,
next week we're going to show the pre-existence of the Son
eternally. We're not, but the Scripture
does. But this is also a place where in pretext many of the
cults are able to gain some of their material. And what do I
mean by pretext? They take it out of context and
say, look at this. And beloved, that's how many
of us in our world today deal with scripture. You ask the average
evangelical, you ask the average Protestant about the gospel and
gospel assurance and confidence in the finished work of Christ.
And see, I can't even ask the questions without giving away
the answer. But if you ask the average person in our day what
the good news of Jesus is, they will give you some really weird,
twisted, incomplete answer. Most of it is what we've done
with what we've heard about who Jesus is. And a lot of it, they'll
try to prove it through scripture and they'll give you Romans 3,
23. Or they'll give you John 3, 16. Or they'll give you this or they'll
give you that and they'll give you small breaths inside large
discourses that have no meaning in isolation. None whatsoever. And beloved, I want to warn you
against that. I want you to see that Jesus is through with his
teaching, but he's still teaching as he prays because he's recapitulating
what he's already taught for three and a half years. He's
establishing here all of the truth of the gospel in such a
way in his prayers that there is no denying that which we've
already seen. And there's a stark contrast
between those who belong to Him, who have been given to Him by
the Father, and the world. And in the context of Jesus'
teaching, the world is the religious people of the world. We've already
talked about that two Sundays ago. and everywhere you turn,
where in the gospel accounts, any of them, the synoptics or
in John, where has Jesus ever stood out in the midst of a culture
or community or a market and stood around and watched debauchery
and called those people the world? He never did. He stood amongst the religious.
He stood amongst the moral righteous. He stood amongst those who heralded
the Bible and prayed and sacrificed. And He called them wicked. He
called them devils. He called them snakes and dogs. He told them that they were the
children of Satan. and that they were not God's
people, that they were never God's people, and that they could
not be God's people because God, the Father, would not give them
to Him. And the only way you could become
God's people is if you were given to the Son by the Father. See
that, church, because we have a really hard relationship with
understanding what wickedness really looks like. We started
Galatians this past week, on midweek. And Paul asserts in
his introduction to that letter that Jesus Christ died in order
to save us from our sins and rescue us from this present evil
age. And the context of that present
evil age is the Jews embracing Jesus and adding Judaism or adding
any, and Paul doesn't just leave it in Judaism, any work of the
flesh whatsoever added to the pure gospel of Jesus is damnable. I want you to hear that. And
this prayer teaches that also. If I had to come up with a title
of today's sermon, I don't know how I would entitle it if it
were direct, but if there was one point, I would say that all
of history has come to bring Jesus to this moment. Now, how
would you title that? That's the point. That's the
point of the first few verses of this prayer. When Jesus had
spoken these words, verse 1, what words? The last three chapters. The last two chapters. Fourteen,
fifteen, the last three. The last three. Everything that
he said with the disciples in the other room. After he'd spoken
these words, he says, I have overcome the world, and then
he looks up and begins to pray. Now why did they look up? Because
if I'm talking to you in person and I'm looking over here, it's
sort of strange. Especially if there's three or
four people and I'm looking at the one on the far left and I'm talking
to the one on the far right. It's going to be a little odd. So
when Jesus and people of his day began to pray, they were
talking to God. God's abode was known in a cultural
sense to be the heavens, so they looked up. No real application there except
to say that Jesus has changed His audience. Jesus is no longer
talking to the disciples. Jesus is actually effectually
praying to the Father. He's talking to the Father. And
He says these words, Father, the hour has come. Now, how many times have we heard
Jesus say the hour has not come? Many. Many, many years he said,
the hour has not come. My time has not come. This is
not my time. When the wine ran out of the
wedding at Cana, Jesus, can you do something about that? I'm
sorry, Mother, my time has not yet come. Jesus does not answer
the whims of creation. Jesus, as the God-man, even to
this day, but especially in His ministry, did not respond to
the circumstances that surrounded Him. He was not one who walked
around the earth and as He saw things that needed dealing with,
dealing with them, everything He said and every step that He
made and every word that ever came out of His mouth was prescribed
in obedience by the will and the decree of God the Father. And Jesus in his humanity, he
never frivolously wasted time. Beloved, I have wasted a lot
of time considering wasting time. And if you don't know what that
looks like, come see me after service. I'll, I'll give you a couple
of options and you'll go, Oh yeah, me too. I've studied time
management and wasted time studying time management. And I need to move on because
I'll start talking about that and waste your time. Jesus didn't
waste time. And the most important aspect
of Jesus' earthly ministry is always that he did everything
to the glory of the Father, by the will of God the Father, for
the sake of the honor and the glory of God, to reveal God exactly
as God is. And we've already seen that Jesus
has said, there's a time coming where I'm no longer going to
talk to you in figures of speech. We're going to plainly say what
needs to be said concerning the father. And we know what that
means. And I believe Jesus praying and
then going to the cross exemplifies that. Why? Because that's what
Jesus prays to begin with. The hour has come. all that has ever transpired,
don't you listen to this, from the beginning of life, the beginning of light, the beginning
of matter, all of it is for this moment.
Everything. There is no such thing as The
cosmos and humanity and every organism else, every other organism
that lives as it lives freely. And then Jesus inserts himself
into that history. Everything exists. And where
do you get that? John's already told us that all
that exists exist by him. Paul says in Colossians one that
exists for him and through him by him. Hebrews one, he created
all things. and all things belong to Him
and all things are for Him. So if the glory of God is to
be revealed in the creation of the world, then the glory of
God as it is revealed in the death and the burial and the
resurrection and the ascension of Jesus Christ for the redemption
of His people alone, then all creation exists for this moment. Because the Scripture teaches
us that God speaks through creation. Romans 1, men are without excuse
for God has made himself known in that which he has created.
The divine power of his essence is clearly seen. So therefore
they are without excuse. There is no human being who can
say, I didn't know there was a God. And I'll talk about this later
if it pops back into my mind, but even atheists. by their own
unbelief, have created their own God. But all that has ever transpired
in the history of time culminates at this moment. The hour has
come. Everything that is and ever was
meant to be and ever will be, this is the apex. What do you
mean? Well, creation. The choosing of God's people,
Abram, the law, the prophets, Israel, the histories. You realize
the entire Old Testament writing culminates at this prayer. The hour has come. There's not segmented theological
things that we need to learn. We need to understand the fullness
of the glory of God. And the only way we can see that
is to look at Jesus. And the only way we can see Jesus
is if God gives us to Him. What does it mean? What is it
that this hour has come? What is this hour? It's the hour
of His death. It's the hour of His resurrection. It's the hour of His ascension
and the hour of His reign. It's the hour of His reign. Now
I want you to think about the next words that come out of Jesus'
mouth. And I saw this yesterday and the day before and I verified
it. People smarter than me. Here in this mood, And in this
structure, even in our grammar. Father, the hour has come. Glorify your son. The son is commanding the father
there. Commanding him with all authority. Glorify your son now. The hour is here. That's what
the Bible is teaching us. If you want to parse that out
in the original languages later, I'll be glad to show it to you. So that the Son may glorify you just as, verse 2, I should translate
just as, you have given him authority over all flesh in order to give
life to all whom you have given him. This is the point of life. This is the point of knowing
God, as He says in verse 3. This is what eternal life really
is, that God is going to glorify Jesus His Son, and that glory
means, remember what glory means? We have seen His glory, glory
as the only Son of the Father, full of grace and truth. This
is seeing God in the fullness of who He really is without anything
left to the imagination. All that God is and all that
there is to know concerning Him is seen through Jesus the Son.
And more importantly, or more specifically, is seen in the
death, the burial, the resurrection, and the ascension of Jesus. I remember the words that Jesus
speaks to the Jews who are mocking Him and trying to catch Him and
trying to discredit Him. And He asked them a question.
He says, What will you say when you see me returning to the place
that I come from? What are you going to say when
you see me going back in to where my Father is? Are you going to
mock me then? Oh yeah, they will. What are you going to say when
my hour has come? What did they say? If you're
really the Christ, come down off the cross and save yourself. But see, saving yourself is not
glorifying, it's not revealing God. God doesn't need saving. Jesus willfully subjected himself
to the cross and laid his life down and then he powerfully rose
it up himself again. He didn't need to do that for
glory. It's all his anyway. God's glory is not dependent
upon how many people see it. God's glory is revealed to his
people, to his sheep, to his elect, to his children. He gives
them to Christ and Christ reveals the father to them. And Jesus will reign. He will
die, He will rise, He will ascend, He will reign. Verse 2, since you have given
Him authority over all flesh since, just as you have given
Him authority over all flesh, in order to give eternal life
to all whom you have given Him. So in this glory, This commandment that Jesus the
Son gives the Father to glorify Him, this is something that is
congruent with the decree of God. This is something that is
being fulfilled from an eternal decree. I want you to get this
for just a minute. In Romans chapter 1, Paul says
these words, Paul, a servant of Jesus Christ, called to be
an apostle, set apart for the gospel of God, which he promised
before time through the prophets and holy scriptures concerning
his son who was descended from David according to the flesh
and was declared to be the son of God in power according to
the Holy Spirit by his resurrection from the dead Jesus Christ our
Lord through whom we have received grace and in Paul's case apostleship
to bring about the obedience of faith for the sake of his
name among the nations. So here in the introduction of
Paul to the Christians of Rome, we see the same construction,
we see the same idea, we see the same doctrine that Jesus
Christ came to reveal God to His people throughout all the
nations. Now we see Jesus saying, just as you gave me authority
over all flesh. What does that mean? You think about The hymn of Christ
that we see in Philippians. That though he was God and equal
with God, he did not take equality with God, something to be grasped,
but he made himself nothing. He lowered himself. He emptied
himself. Obedient unto death on a cross.
And then the Father, what does the Father do? Because of this,
God glorifies Him. He exalts Christ above all things. That at the name of Christ, every
knee would bow and every tongue will confess that Jesus is the
Lord. Are you seeing it? Christ has authority over all
flesh. That means every man, woman, child who has lived, is
living and ever will live, he is the master of. He is the Lord
of the elect. He is the Lord of the reprobate.
He is the Lord of the elect angels, those who have never sinned.
And he is the Lord of the non-elect angels, those who have fallen.
He is the God of the cosmos. And by his word, he created all
things that do exist. And if there's anything that
does exist, he created it. And if he did not create it,
it does not exist, nor will it. He is the master over all things. Christ is much more than just
an incarnate man who is God, though that's pretty impressive.
He's God. And He has authority over all
flesh. And you've given me authority,
He says, in order to give eternal life to whom you have given Me. Really? Let's keep reading. And this
is eternal life, that they Those you have given me know you. The only true God, Jesus Christ, whom you have sent. I glorified you on earth, having
accomplished the work that you gave me to do. And now, Father,
glorify me in your own presence with the glory that I had with
you before the world existed. So let's unpack the rest of that
in the time we have remaining. What is the finished work of
Jesus? See, a lot of times people answer
this question, they say, it's His death, burial, resurrection,
ascension. Well, you know, it's the cross work of Jesus. All
that goes together, by the way. You cannot separate His death
from His ascension. The reason He ascended is because
He came from heaven and He goes back. And that's what He explains
here in this praying. What is the finished work of
Jesus? Well, the Jews did work, didn't they? The Jews pointed
to the work of God. The Jews pointed in their religion,
and in their eyes, they felt that they were doing the work
of God. But yet, only the Son has done
the work of God. Only Jesus has done the work.
Now listen, I've been in the ministry over 20 years and there
have been many times in that tenure where I've thought, you
know what, I'm doing the work of God. Is it? Now, in a literal sense,
maybe. But what is the work of God?
To believe in the one whom He has sent. So those who are believing
in Christ and His finished work, would understand what this finished
work is. And they would understand that
this work is completed. Matter of fact, that's the last
words, some of the last words Jesus says on the cross. It is
finished. I've accomplished it. If you
finish a race, did you stop early? No. But you might not have won
it. You might not have come in first
place. You might not have come into the top 100, but you finished
it. But we already saw last week, Christ has overcome the world. Not only did He finish the work
of God, but He's victorious in it. He didn't just get through
and punch out. He completed it. So it obviously
is not that He died and that means He finished. But that's
where most of evangelical life, that's where they focus. I had
these strange thoughts Friday as I was sitting there thinking. Too much thinking, not enough
reading. And I thought to myself, I'd
like to write another book that I'll never publish called, I
Do Not Believe in God. And in that, I would like to
expound upon the different gods in which I do not believe. Now,
it would be a terrible waste of time. Back to time management. See, it always comes back to
time management. It would be a terrible waste of time, but
I do not believe in the god of evangelicalism. I do not believe
in the god of Protestantism. I do not believe in the god,
now hear me out, of Calvinism. I do not believe in the God of
the Reformation. I do not believe in the God of
Baptists. And I do not believe in the God of many things. I believe in
the God of the Bible. And I'm here to tell you, beloved,
that most every iteration of people, of gospel, And you'll
see this on Wednesday nights if you come as we get into Galatians
more through the year. It doesn't take but just about
a decade for a group of men to get a hold of the pure gospel,
then lose sight of scripture, and then begin to hold fast to
what they believe, and it's just a matter of time before Jesus
is a caricature. Before their God has addendums. We don't read the Bible in pretext. We don't know God from our vitamin
box theology. And we don't hold to the historical
labels and standards and expect everybody to understand what
we're saying, especially if you put five evangelicals in a room,
you got five different gods and five different gospels and five
different iterations of Jesus. I'm being honest about it. And
some of you may be in the same circles that I'm in and you see
it constantly. And some of you may not know
what I'm talking about. Good. Keep reading your Bible. The work of Jesus Christ is not
just that He died hoping to save some people. The work of Jesus
Christ is a work that is promised by God before the foundations
of the world, that He even gave the first couple that we see
in the creation account. He says that the seed of the
woman will crush the head of the serpent. As I've killed animals
in this perfect place to cover the sin that you've committed,
so shall I send the seed of a woman to be crushed, to cover and to
free you from this sin. And I will give mercy to whom
I want. And I will love whoever I want. And I will save whosoever I feel
like. That's the good news. This work is promised. The finished
work of Jesus is a promised work, and more importantly, it's an
effectual work. You see, there's the catch, isn't
it? If a man showed up on the scene
today in history, in the Middle East, and he came to say that
he was Messiah, he'd get some attention. He'd get a lot of
attention. He'd get a lot of attention from
a lot of evangelicals. He'd get a lot of attention from
Jews. He'd get a lot of attention from Muslims. Especially if he could speak
with authority or do some magic. And it wouldn't be hard for people
to go, OK, this is this is real. This is true. I want to believe
because, beloved, there have been many cults in my lifetime
who believe that Jesus had come back. I could think of three that were
very prominent in the news and it all ended in disaster. They
all died. People come from God and they
get a gathering of people and people just follow it hook, line,
and sinker because as we see in 2 Thessalonians, that's God's
work. When people believe a lie, it
is because God has caused them to believe a lie. When people
believe the truth, it is because God has caused them to believe
the truth. But here is the real middle ground. When people have
the truth, but believe a lie concerning the truth, that's
where we are confused sometimes. And it gets the rub, to the end
of the day, as to what is the promise of God of eternal life. Knowing God. Knowing that this
work is finished. That this promised work is effectual. that it did something. Want to put some theology behind
it? Some labels? The vicarious atonement, the
substitutionary atonement of Jesus Christ. He died for His
people. He laid down His life for His
sheep. He raised Himself up again and
is glorified and promises us glorification also. The work
of God through Jesus Christ is effectual. It did something. It accomplished something. It
sealed something. Moreover, it sealed a people. It gave everlasting life to a
people. This work is eternal and this
work or this promise is eternal and this work is everlasting.
It will not fail. Because it is effectual. Yet the gospel has been watered
down to Jesus died for you, would you accept him? That's not found
in scripture. Unless you're a really good pre-textual
chopper. Because the Bible says no one
accepts him. and the ones who believe in His
name, He calls them to do it. Well, that's not fair. What's
the choice? Absolutely. Thank God I didn't have a choice.
I'd probably be one of the greatest apologists of a cult or a leader of one. Just my personality
suits it. The work is finished. It's effectual.
How do we know? Verse 3. This is eternal life. And I'm going to come back next
week to this verse again. This is eternal life that they know
you. Who's he talking to? The Father. Father, this is eternal life
that they know you. This is eternal life that they
know the only true God. This is eternal life that they
know the Son whom you have sent. This is eternal life. Now, almost everybody in here
knows the name of the President. But I'm willing to bet nobody
in here knows the President. I bet all of us have a favorite
author or athlete or movie star, or singer, or tap dancer. I'm kidding, who's a tap dancer
nowadays, right? I had favorite dancers when I
was a kid. Yeah, we don't know these people.
Even when we meet them, we don't know them. And the only way to get to know
someone is that that person spends time with you and you get to
see behind the mask. You get to see behind the facade.
You get to see, not that there's fakeness, but there is reservation. You get to see that everybody
in the world is multi-dimensional in their personality. We all
got good, bad, ugly, indifferent. We get to learn through time
together by how we see each other and listen what we really love. See, until that moment, you didn't
even know I had a thing to do with dancing. I loved dancing.
I used to dance. A lot. Not anymore, but you couldn't
see that, could you? This is getting strange. Loved it. And I'd rather watch
Lawrence Welk than cartoons when I was a kid. Loved it. Great
dancers on there. But the only way you're going
to get to know those things is if I tell them to you. If I reveal them
to you. If you want to see all that I
am, you have to spend more time than just this relationship.
And quite honestly, I'm probably a lot more boring in real life
than I am here. And you're thinking, not if you
like dancing. The same is true with getting
to know God. We can look at the world, we
can look at the trees, we can look at the sun, we can look at the
universe, we can understand the complexities of our body and
the human eye and the eye of any species. We can say, wow,
there's an awesome creator. We can know something about him.
We can look at the pages of scripture and we can learn academically.
We can move our minds into researching topics and individual theologies. We can take classes and get PhDs
in systematic theology, or applied theology, or historical theology,
and we can come to terms of speaking in such a way as to be an expert
in the field of God, but we can, with all of that knowledge, not
know Him. And in all the preparation of
that knowledge, we will never know Him. This is eternal life that they
know you. That they know the only true
God. And they know Jesus, the anointed one that you have sent. And many people, as we saw in
the end of John two. Believed in Jesus because of
the signs and the wonders that he did, but Jesus did not believe
in them. He knew what was in man. No one
had to testify to Him concerning the heart of man. Let me tell
you something, beloved. We know this already, but I want
to reiterate it here. Until God reveals Himself to
you through His Son, you cannot know Him. It is a divine, supernatural,
God-only work. I know that's redundant. Only
God can show you the truth. Only God can reveal to you His
glory. Only God in His supernatural
desire and power will cause you to believe. That's a gospel truth. It's necessary for evangelism. The gospel, in other words, is
life. The good news of Jesus. See,
you know what's wrong? We've taken the gospel as a theological
principle. We've made it a theological principle.
Here's the gospel. Here's the definition. And if
we take the definition and we show someone the definition of
the gospel, then they can be saved. Nope. What's the gospel of Jesus, according
to John three? You must be born by the spirit
of God. Now, who do you say that to? One of the most prominent
teachers of Israel. I wanted to say, based on how
Jesus approaches Nicodemus, that Nicodemus was probably the most
gifted and most prominent teacher of Israel. The gospel is life. Jesus says
it in John 11. I am the resurrection. I am the
life. You want to know God. You've
got to see Christ. You want to see Christ. He's
got to open your eyes. John 8. Who sinned, this man
or his parents, that he was born blind? Neither, Jesus says. But he was born blind that God
may be glorified in it. Jesus loved Martha and Mary and
Lazarus. So when He heard that Lazarus
was ill, He stayed a few more days. This illness does not lead to
death, He said to the sisters, messengers, but it is so that
the Son of God may be glorified in it. And everybody saw Lazarus' decomposed
body come out of the tomb. fresh and renewed. And they still didn't believe.
As a matter of fact, it was that day the Sanhedrin decided that
Jesus must die for any man who can do these things will turn
the hearts of the people against us. We are doing the work of
God, they thought, and this man does things by the power of God,
but he doesn't get the fullness of God. So we've got to stop
him before he ruins the image of God. I think about what I
just said. Think about that. That's a true
reality of what religion does, religious people do. They create
in their mind how God's work is supposed to be revealed, what
God's work is supposed to be doing and they make a mantra
of it. Then they build buildings to
organize and they get people to give money to secure it. And the next thing you know,
we've got a convention. or denomination. Jesus is the eternal life. 1 John 1, the eternal life, which was manifest
to us, which we now proclaim to you and our fellowship is
with Him. Salvation is knowing the life
intimately. Seeing the life, not getting
life. The gospel is not, here's life,
do you want it? Take it. The gospel is, here's
life, look at it. Be found in me, Jesus says. Abide in me. As the woman worked her way through
the crowd, Because she knew all she had
to do is touch the hem of Jesus. He turns around and looks at
her. Jesus is life. He doesn't offer
it. He is it. Jesus is the one and only God. And eternal life is Jesus who
finished the work of God, who was at the Father's side, making
him known through his finished work. The gospel is life. And here,
the gospel is glory. See, the gospel is glory. Glorify me. This is eternal life. They know you. They know me. They know us, the one true God.
See, that's what Jesus is saying there. I glorified you on earth. Having accomplished the work
that you gave me to do, and now, verse five, Father, glorify me
in your own presence with the glory that I had before the world
existed. Seeing God for who he really
is in redemption. Versus seeing His glory and justice. Those are the only two ways that
people will ever see God. They'll see Him for who He is
and His justice against them. Or we who have been given to
the Son will see Him in the fullness of His mercy, the fullness of
His love, the fullness of His finished redemption, the fullness
of the good news. So the gospel then is knowing
God. The good news is that Christ
has made God known to us. That's the good news. Now we
know God. Now we're with God. Now He's
ours and we are His. This is the gospel. That's the
point that Jesus is making here. Glorify me. Show everyone who
I am and what I've done and let them see that we are one in the
same. Knowing God. is not understanding,
as I've talked about already this morning, a caricature of
God, like the Jewish religion. The Jewish religion made a caricature
of God. How do you know that? Because
they refused to say they could see the fullness of God in the
sun. That's why. adding works and morals according
to the culture as the solid ground that doesn't shift beneath our
feet is anathema, the word meaning to be accursed. We do not come
with information concerning the gospel and say that we have the
gospel because the gospel is Jesus, the gospel is God, the
gospel is knowing God as he's been revealed through God the
Son. But there's two other ways. We
could use that analogy, or that analogy, we could use the comparison
with Judaism, with evangelicalism, and everything else. And what
do these terms mean? I looked at my church history
section on my bookshelf the other day, and I've got six books defining
evangelicalism. Some of them are written a long
time ago, and some of them are written fairly recently, in the
last ten years. And they're all different. And in the same way, I can look
on the other side of one of my bookshelves and see Christology. A little section where I talk,
where the books that deal with the person, the work of Jesus
Christ. And I found five of those, some of them entitled, this is
the gospel, such and such is the gospel, the gospel of Jesus,
the gospel of God, the gospel of hope. And you take those out
and you start looking at their definitions and they're all different.
There are great similarities, but there are always these little
parting differences that cause me to recognize that these are
not the same gospel. They can't be. These are not
the same revelation of God. So we could even look at not
just Christian type religion that has missed it, but we can
look at paganism. Paganism is defined in Romans
1. Knowing that there is a God not
giving thanks to him, but worshiping that which was made, the creature,
the creatures, the climate, the earth. And as much as I like
science and biology and physics, I could worship all that. I could
be in awe with all of that if God had not made himself known
to me. Worshipping man, it's paganism. I find it interesting as I think
about how the world makes themselves, each person in the world makes
themselves righteous before God. And it's usually in religion
of some kind or paganism in some way. Look how good I am. Look
how loving I am. Look at how I help the earth. And atheism. What better way
to become righteous before the God that doesn't exist as to
erase Him? You cannot be subject to that
which is not real. So in delusion, God causes you
to believe there is no God. But even people that come out
of that and come out of paganism and come out into not the cults
or world religions, but come into what we would consider Historically,
Christianity, we need to recognize that, beloved, if everybody who
claimed to be Christian in these United States were truly God's
people, we would have not a famine of the Word of God, but we'd
be drowning in it. The gospel is knowing Jesus is
God, the gospel is knowing. The work of God, the son, the
gospel is seeing and believing and trusting in the revelation
of God, the father, through Jesus Christ and his work, the gospel
is knowing the work of God for his elect alone. So the father. Glorifies the
son. so that the Son glorifies the
Father, just as the Father has granted the Son authority of
all peoples, so that the Son might give eternal life to all
that the Father has given to Him. And in these things, God
is seen perfectly as He is, and thus the knowledge of God in
this way is eternal life, because it declares God's perfect redemption
of His people. See how simple that is? One analogy after another. See
how, honestly, to me, glorious that is? Because I'm not looking
and hoping that I do the right thing or make the right choice
or understand the right aspect. It's not up to us, beloved, to
be firm in our foundation in our flesh. How firm a foundation
we have in Jesus Christ our Lord. He is the rock upon which we
are set. It is not our obedience. It is
not our zeal. It is not our passion. It is
a simple faith, and a simple grace, and a simple good news
that God has revealed through Jesus Christ His Son, and He's
revealed it not through the precepts of Study, He's revealed it by
the Spirit through the Word where Jesus says, I'm saving those
that the Father has given me. Simple faith is God given to
believe that that is true for you. And if you have not been convinced
that Christ has died for you, And you have no assurance. If you've not been convinced
that Christ's righteousness in your place is your hope, you
have not been given confidence for eternal life. Christ is alive,
and if you are in Him, you will live too. As I said before, this work is
everlasting. And that's what verses 6 through
the end really begin to say. Jesus prays for His 11 disciples
here. He prays for the elect of His
day and time there. He prays for the elect who will
believe throughout the world. See, Jesus has sovereign reign
over all peoples. all people groups and every man
woman and child and as he wishes this could be tricky he did it already he's laid his
life down for his people already and as God the Spirit wishes
he will cause them to believe in time they will be gifted the
faith that is necessary for the believer because believer equals
faith. My prayer for you is just as
last week before last we saw Jesus says, Do you now believe
the hour is coming? Indeed, it has come and you'll
be scattered. Remember the failures of our founders Friends, though we are weak in
the faith at times, we never lose it. We never lose it though
we are scattered every now and then, though we feel scatterbrained.
We don't lose faith. We have faith because it all
comes back to Christ. And it all comes back to the
promise of the Father. And that's why Jesus is praying
to the Father. Because it is a done work, it
is a promise, it is everlasting, and you cannot be lost. No matter
what this life throws at you. Let's pray. Lord, as we think about these
words, help us contemplate the finished work of Jesus. Help
us realize the sufficiency of His life and death, resurrection
and reign. Father, give us a passion for
the Word. Give us a passion for one another.
Give us the gospel in our hearts and mouths in a simple way that
we might share it with our neighbors, with our friends and families,
with our enemies. so that those who are yours will
be saved out of the world. Lord, there are many theological
things that are just rolling in my mind that are so vital
and so important. I pray that you would help me
rest in a place as teacher of knowing when and if I should
deal with all of these things. For I do not want to usurp your
glory. I do not want to erase the sufficiency of your word
through my own study. So God, your will be done for
your people to the praise of your glory. In Jesus name, we
pray. Amen.