The Real Lords Prayer - Part One - Jesus Prays For Himself (John 17: 1-5)

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Episode Notes:

Introduction

• Common Misconception: When most think of the Lord’s Prayer, they recall Matthew 6: "Our Father who art in heaven, hallowed be Thy name." However, this is technically the Disciples' Prayer, given as a model for them. The Real Lord’s Prayer: Found in John 17, where Jesus prays to the Father directly. John 17 is considered one of the deepest portions of the Bible. It's a chapter filled with simple language yet profound meaning.

Structure of John 17

• Verses 1-5: Jesus prays for Himself.
• Verses 6-19: Jesus prays for His apostles.
• Verses 20-26: Jesus prays for all believers, including those who will come to faith through the apostles' ministry.

Key Questions

• What did Jesus ask for?
• For whom did He pray?
• What can we learn from His prayer?

Key Themes

• The Hour Has Come: Refers to the climax of Jesus' earthly mission, particularly His crucifixion.
• Glorification Through the Cross: The cross is seen as Jesus' ultimate glorification, showcasing His love, sacrifice, and the completion of His mission.
• Eternal Life: Knowing God and Jesus intimately is the essence of eternal life. Jesus asks to return to the glory He had with the Father before His incarnation.

The Glory of the Cross

• Historical Perspective: Often, great people are recognized for their true worth in their death.
  • Examples:
    • Abraham Lincoln’s greatness was acknowledged even by his critics upon his death.
    • Joan of Arc was recognized as a saint by her executioners.
• Martyrdom: Jesus' death on the cross revealed His true glory and drew people to Him.

Completion of His Work

• Jesus’ Mission: To show God's love to humanity. The cross is the ultimate demonstration of that love.
• Obedience: Jesus glorified God through perfect obedience, even to the point of death on the cross.
• Vindication: The resurrection proved Jesus' triumph over death and sin.
• Return to Glory: Jesus' resurrection and ascension restored Him to His former glory with the Father.

Knowing God

• Old Testament Context: Knowing God was central in Jewish wisdom and prophecy.
  • Proverbs 3:18, Hosea 4:6, Amos 5:4 emphasize seeking and knowing God.
• New Testament Revelation: Jesus made it possible to know God intimately and personally.

Conclusion

• Summary of Jesus' Prayer for Himself: It centers on glorification through the cross, resurrection, and restoration to heavenly glory.
• Application for Believers: Jesus' prayer encourages believers to seek an intimate relationship with God, recognizing the significance of Jesus' sacrifice and the promise of eternal life.

Transcript

The Real Lord’s Prayer. - Part One - Jesus Prays For Himself. (John 17:1-26)

Transcript. 

When we think of the Lord’s Prayer, most of us immediately recall the prayer recorded in Matthew chapter 6 that begins, "Our Father who art in heaven, hallowed be Thy name." 

Technically, that prayer in Matthew 6 is the Disciples' Prayer. When the Lord spoke those words, He said them to the disciples, He said, "When you pray, pray like this," and then He gave those famous words.

If you want to find the Lord's Prayer—the prayer He Himself prayed—you have to turn to John chapter 17. 

In our studies in the Gospel of John, we have today come to that chapter, and indeed it is one of the deepest portions of the Word of God you will find in the bible. It will take some time to expound in detail all that is contained here.

One expositor many years ago said that John chapter 17 contains the simplest language, yet it has the most profound meaning of any chapter in the Bible. 

One other bible commentator who was a friend of D.L. Moody wrote a whole 450-page book on just John chapter 17. 

Another famous preacher here in the UK called Martin Lloyd Jones in the early 1960’s preached a series of sermons on this one chapter that lasted for 45 sermons.

Now, I don’t plan to do that, but I do plan for us to spend three episodes studying this chapter. And as John Stott, another well-known pastor in the UK said a few years ago about it, "We cannot plumb its depths, but we can paddle in the shallows of John 17 for a little while." That's what I'd like for us to do—to wade through this great chapter and today look at what some people call “The real Lord's Prayer”, if you will.

But before reading this prayer I have to say studying it provokes questions in my mind:

What did He ask for?

If He prayed for somebody else, for whom did He pray?

What can I learn today from studying this prayer of the Lord.

These are some of the questions I think we will answer as we look at the Lord's Prayer in John 17.

In today’s episode of TBPDP….

This chapter has often been divided into three parts:

In the first five verses, the Lord begins by praying for Himself.

Then, in verses 6 to 19, He prays for the apostles.

In the latter part of the prayer, beginning at verse 20 and going to the end of the chapter, He prays for those who would believe because of the ministry of the apostles, which includes all believers from the time of the apostles down to us.

So, the prayer very naturally falls into these three parts. Let's begin by today looking at what the Lord asked for Himself first.

Verse, one says.

1 After Jesus said this, he looked toward heaven and prayed: “Father, the hour has come. Glorify your Son, that your Son may glorify you. 2 For you granted him authority over all people that he might give eternal life to all those you have given him. 3 Now this is eternal life: that they know you, the only true God, and Jesus Christ, whom you have sent. 4 I have brought you glory on earth by finishing the work you gave me to do. 5 And now, Father, glorify me in your presence with the glory I had with you before the world began.

As we continue our journey through the Gospel of John, you'll recall that several times we have encountered the phrase, "My hour is not yet come." This phrase is a reference to the cross.

For Jesus life had a climax, and that high point was found at the Cross of Calvery. To him the Cross was the glory of life and the way to the glory of eternity.

"The hour has come," he said, "for the Son of Man to be glorified", he first said that way back in (John 12:23). What did Jesus mean when he repeatedly spoke of the Cross as his glory and his glorification? There is more than one answer to that question.

It is one of the facts of history that again and again it is in death that the great people have found their glory. It was when they died, and how they died, which sometimes shows people what and who they really were. 

They may have been misunderstood, undervalued, condemned as criminals in their lives, but their deaths showed their true place in the great scheme of things.

Abraham Lincoln had his enemies during his lifetime; but even those who had criticized him saw his greatness when he died. Stanton, his war minister, who had always regarded Lincoln as crude and uncouth and who had taken no pains to conceal his disapproval of him while he was alive, looked down at his dead body with tears in his eyes. "There lies," he said, "the greatest ruler of men the world has ever seen."

Joan of Arc was burned as a witch and a heretic by the English. Amidst the crowd there was an Englishman who was one of the secretaries of the King of England who had sworn to add a log to the fire, left the scene saying: "We are all lost because we have burned a saint."

Again, and again a martyr's glory has only emerged through death. It was so with Jesus, for even the centurion at the foot of the Cross was left saying: "Truly this was the Son of God" (Matthew 27:54). The Cross was the glory of Jesus because he was never more awesome and majestic than in his death. The Cross was his glory because its drew men and women to him in a way that even his life had never done--and it still does so today.

Furthermore, the Cross was the glory of Jesus because it was the completion of his work. "I have accomplished the work," he said as he died there.

For him to have stopped short of the Cross would have been to leave his task uncompleted. Jesus had come into this world to tell men and women about the love of God and to show it to them. If he had stopped short of the Cross, it would have been to say that God's love said: "This far and no farther." By going to the Cross Jesus showed that there was nothing that the love of God was not prepared to do and endure for humanity, that there was literally no limit to it.

That is exactly what Jesus did. He completed his task; he brought God's love to men. For him that meant the Cross; and the Cross was his glory because he finished the work God gave him to do.

There is another question--how did the Cross glorify God? The only way to glorify God is to obey him. A child brings honour to his parents when they live the way they want He or she to live. 

A citizen brings honour to their country when they obeys its reasonable laws. 

A student brings honour to his teacher when he obeys his teachers instructions and works diligently. Jesus brought glory and honour to God by his perfect obedience to him. 

The gospel story makes it quite clear that Jesus could have escaped the Cross. Humanly speaking, he could have turned back and need never have gone to Jerusalem. We can look at Jesus in the last days, and we can see how he loved God! We can see to what lengths his obedience was willing to go!" He glorified God on the Cross by rendering the perfect obedience of perfect love.

But there is still more. The Cross was not the end. There was the Resurrection to follow. This was the vindication of Jesus. It was the proof that men could do their worst, and that Jesus could still triumph. 

The Cross was the worst that men could do to Jesus; but even that could not conquer him. The glory of the resurrection obliterated mans attempt to put shame upon Him on the Cross.

For Jesus the Cross was the way back. For him, it was the gateway to glory; and, if he had refused to pass through it, there would have been no glory for him to enter into. For Jesus the Cross was his return to God.

There is another important thought in this passage, for it contains the great New Testament definition of eternal life. It is eternal life to know God and to know Jesus Christ whom he has sent. Eternal life is, to know nothing other than the life of God. To possess it, to enter into it, is to experience here and know something of the splendour, and the majesty, and the joy, and the peace, and the holiness which are characteristic of the life of God, a life that can continue into eternity.

To know God was always a distinctive thought of the Old Testament. Wisdom is "a tree of life to those who lay hold of her" (Proverbs 3:18). "By knowledge are the righteous delivered" (Proverbs 11:9). Habbakuk's dream of the golden age is that "the earth will be filled with the knowledge of the glory of God" (Habakkuk 2:14). Hosea hears God's voice saying to him: "My people are destroyed for lack of knowledge" (Hosea 4:6). 

Proverbs 3:6, tells us: "Know him, and he shall direct thy paths: "Seek me, and live,” said Amos. (Amos 5:4), For Amos seeking God meant trying to know him. 

But what then does it mean to know God?

Undoubtedly there is an element of intellectual knowledge. 

We know things; but there are somethings we could never have known them unless Jesus had come to show and tell them to us. Through the life and work of Jesus, we discover what God is really like. 

But there is something else. To know God is is not merely to have intellectual knowledge of him; it is to have an intimate personal relationship with him, which is like the nearest and dearest relationship we can have in life. 

Once again, without Jesus such intimacy with God would have been unthinkable and impossible. It is Jesus who showed us that God is not remote and unapproachable, but revealed Hi as the Father whose name and nature are love.

To know God is to know what he is like, and to be on the most intimate terms of friendship with him; and neither of these things are possible without Jesus Christ.

To glorify also means to reveal or make manifest. John 16:14 provides a clear definition for us: " He will glorify me because it is from me that he will receive what he will make known to you.”Jesus is asking the Father to reveal Himself through the cross. 

The cross is the full revelation of God’s love in Jesus Christ, showcasing not just His deity, but His love, and sacrifice as well.  On the cross Jesus became our substitute, dying in our place for our sins. 

Through the cross, Jesus' love is made evident as He died for us.

Jesus prays to be glorified so that He can glorify the Father. This means that through the cross, the Father's love and goodness are also revealed. As John Calvin said, "In the cross of Christ, is a splendid theatre of the incomparable goodness of God set before the whole world." The cross is the ultimate display of God's glory, because it shows both Jesus' love and the Father's goodness.

Jesus continues His prayer by explaining that His glorification is also for the purpose of securing our salvation. He prays, “As You have given Him authority over all flesh, that He should give eternal life to as many as You have given Him." Through the cross, Jesus has been given the authority to grant eternal life. Eternal life is defined as knowing the only true God and Jesus Christ, whom He has sent.

Jesus continues to pray for His glorification, not just on the cross but also in heaven. In verses 4 and 5, He says, "I have brought you glory on earth by finishing the work you gave me to do. And now, Father, glorify me in your presence with the glory I had with you before the world began." 

Jesus is asking to be restored to His pre-incarnate glory with His Father in heaven.

Jesus' prayer in John 17 is indeed profound. He asks to be glorified in His future restoration to the glory He had before even the world began. 

Now quite honestly, I think this much of this is beyond my comprehension I can't even imagine what the glory of Jesus Christ with the father was like before he came incarnate upon the earth. 

He was revealing God the father to us all and now he says in that I have done that I'm asking you that after I die on the cross you glorify me to that former state with you again in heaven again. 

The introduction to Hebrews tells us.

“In these last days he has spoken to us by his Son, whom he appointed heir of all things, and through whom also he made the universe. The Son is the radiance of God’s glory and the exact representation of his being, sustaining all things by his powerful word. After he had provided purification for sins, he sat down at the right hand of the Majesty in heaven.

(Hebrews 1: 2-3)

That to me is beyond my wildest imagination but I can simply say that's what he was asking for, when he prayed for himself.

So, the first part of the prayer the Lord's prayer is for himself, and it can all be summed up in one word, “glorification,  that he be glorified, which means that he be glorified by the cross in heaven.

But it seems to me but he also wants to be glorified in are relationship with Him and with one another….. Next time.