The Lord's Prayer - Part 3 — David Adams

I'm acquiring a collection of hymn books up here. If I stay long enough, I'll remember to not bring one when I come to the platform. You know, if you take enough bus trips, you're going to get a full diet.

We've graduated from Chinese food now to buns. If you got brought the two together now, you might have a full plate. I'm not sure about these buns, but... All right, will you turn with me please to our chapter tonight, John chapter 17?

Reading the Lord’s Prayer in John 17

And we shall read the chapter tonight. That's a little dangerous for me, I know, because... there are a number of places that it's very difficult to keep on reading, and not stop to make a comment, or to think about what the passage says.

But we'll read it through this evening for the first time. John 17. These words spake Jesus, and lifted up his eyes to heaven, and said, Father, the hour is come, that thy Son also may glorify thee, as thou hast given him power over all flesh, that he should give eternal life to as many as thou hast given him.

And this is life eternal, that they might know thee, the only true God, and Jesus Christ, whom thou hast sent. I have glorified thee on the earth, I have finished the work which thou gavest me to do, and now, O Father, glorify thou me with thine own self, with the glory which I had with thee before the world was.

I have manifested thy name unto the men which thou gavest me out of the world. Thine they were, and thou gavest them me, and they have kept thy word. Now they have known that all things whatsoever thou hast given me are of thee.

For I have given unto them the words which thou gavest me, and they have received them, and have known surely that I came out from thee, and they have believed that thou didst send me. I pray for them, I pray not for the world, but for them which thou hast given me, for they are thine, and all mine are thine, and thine are mine, and I am glorified in them.

And now I am no more in the world, but these are in the world, and I come to thee. Holy Father, keep through thine own name those whom thou hast given me, that they may be one as we are. While I was with them in the world, I kept them in thy name, those that thou gavest me I have kept, and none of them is lost but the son of perdition, that the scripture might be fulfilled.

And now come I to thee. These things I speak in the world, that they might have my joy fulfilled in themselves. I have given them thy word, and the world hath hated them, because they are not of the world, even as I am not of the world.

I pray not that thou shouldest take them out of the world, but that thou shouldest keep them from the evil. They are not of the world, even as I am not of the world. Sanctify them through thy truth. Thy word is truth.

Thou hast sent me into the world, even so have I also sent them into the world, and for their sakes I sanctify myself, that they also might be sanctified through the truth. Neither pray I for these alone, but for them also which shall believe on me through their word, that they all may be one, as thou, Father, art in me, and I in thee, that they also may be one in us, that the world may believe that thou hast sent me.

And the glory which thou gavest me I have given them, that they may be one, even as we are one, I in them, and thou in me, that they may be made perfect in one, and that the world may know that thou hast sent me, and hast loved them as thou hast loved me.

Father, I will that they also whom thou hast given me be with me where I am, that they may behold my glory which thou hast given me, for thou lovest me before the foundation of the world. O righteous Father, the world hath not known thee, but I have known thee, and these have known that thou hast sent me, and I have declared unto them thy name, and will declare it, that the love wherewith thou hast loved me may be in them, and I in them.

The Depth and Inexhaustibility of John 17

You only have to read this chapter over even lightly, like we have done this evening, to realize the depth of its content, the extent of its feeling, and the breadth of its truth. And while we do have two more nights before us after this evening to consider this chapter again, I think you will appreciate the fact that we are not sufficient to cover this thing aptly or adequately.

There are three main features of what we have read tonight that we have not considered in previous nights that stand out still worthy of consideration and worthy of comment. Three major themes, and I hope to choose these three for the next three studies that we have before us.

The Many Dimensions of Glory

One of them which we will not touch on this evening, but only lightly perchance, is the theme of glory, one of the most difficult words that we have to define, to describe. We have a concept in our minds as to what the word glory means, but the more you think of it, and the more you look at the scriptures that use the word, the more you see the difficulty in properly describing or defining the word glory.

It is not an easy word to describe. Because there is a celestial glory, there is one glory of the sun, another glory of the moon, another glory of the stars. One star differs from another star in glory.

There is a glory which is terrestrial, there is a glory which is personal, there is a glory which is ecclesiastical, there is a glory of material things, there is a glory of visible things, and there is a glory of the invisible things.

And, as we have looked on a previous occasion, we have such things as the man being made in the image, and glory of God. 1 Corinthians chapter 11. We have stated also that the woman is the glory of the man.

We have stated that the woman's hair is for her glory. So, it is a very widely used word, and the concept of it is as wide. It is not an easy word to define. But, when we come to John chapter 17, we have various aspects of the use of this word glory that I hope to perhaps look with you at tomorrow night.

The Stewardship Aspect of Jesus’ Prayer

What I want to notice with you tonight is based on these two or three times the Lord says something similar to this, words that are rather difficult to understand at the first reading. But, the Scripture never yields all its treasures at the first reading, does it?

And, it never yields its treasures at superficial reading. And, how many times we have discovered, to our surprise, that passages of Scripture that we have known by memory, known by heart for years, suddenly reveal something to us that was in the heart of them that we hadn't noticed was there.

It's the thrilling part of Bible reading and Bible studying that it is inexhaustible. The Scriptures of truth know no bounds, no limits whatsoever. And, in the extent and to the measure in which the Spirit of God is pleased to open to our hearts, our wondering hearts at times, some of these hidden contents of His Word, we are thrilled the more we get to know it.

And, I think that is true of this chapter 17 of the Gospel by John, the Lord's Prayer, properly so called. I want to look at the stewardship aspect of this prayer tonight. And, as you know, that fits in very nicely with our subject each morning.

It has often been said, and I think I did already mention this to you, that with one sweeping statement, most often we have felt we have encompassed this whole land of Havilah where there's gold and much fine gold, when we have said that this chapter 17 of the Gospel by John is the high priestly prayer of the Lord Jesus.

Perhaps we haven't stopped to notice that it is more than that. Perhaps we haven't stopped to say, well, now, just a minute, I wonder, as the high priest did he say this? As the high priest did he say that?

And then, as you go back over and read again a number of things, which, briefly, I want to point out to you tonight, you say to yourself, I must modify this explanation of John chapter 17. I must realize that it is much more than being a high priestly prayer.

That it is a prayer of intercession, there is no question, but that it is much more than that, there is a certainty. For instance, we read in the early verses, we did consider, didn't we, down, well, not completely, to the bottom of verse 2 as yet, but some of verse 3 as well.

“I Have Finished the Work”

Now, look at verse 4, I have glorified thee on the earth, I have finished the work which thou gavest me to do. And then, look over farther down, something similar, when he says, in the one I was thinking of, however, was the one when he says that he is no longer in the world.

I am no more in the world, verse 11. These two verses in themselves are sufficient to make us stop and consider. I have glorified thee on the earth, verse 4, I have finished the work which thou gavest me to do.

But he hasn't been to the cross yet, has he? And then he says, in verse 11, I am no more in the world. And then you say to yourself, but where was he? He was standing on the border of the Garden of Gethsemane.

He was physically with them right then. In fact, he was expressing this prayer audibly for their sakes. But he says he's no longer in the world. Now, how do we understand this? How do we understand the fact that he said in verse 4, I have glorified thee on the earth, having finished the work which thou gavest me to do.

Now, the difficulty has seemingly been surmounted by some students of the Scriptures by saying that this is what they call a retroactive prayer. That is, the Lord has actually been to the cross, whether in spirit or otherwise.

He has finished the work which the Father gave him to do, and he is coming back in the spirit of his soul, and he is saying, he is giving expression to this in this prayer. It's a very fancy bit of sidestepping, isn't it?

It seems to me it's not an honest approach to what the Master said. It is making him say something which actually he didn't say. What's the problem with accepting what he said as he said it? What's the problem with him saying, I have glorified thee on the earth, I have finished the work which thou gavest me to do?

Oh, you see, that problem is very evident because he has not been to the cross yet. He has not suffered and died. He has not been to the grave, to the tomb, to defeat the great imperial monster of death.

Now, there you have another problem. When the Lord was on the cross, you remember what he said? He said, it is finished. But he hadn't been into death yet. And he had to go into the grave. He had to destroy, through death, him that had the power of death, that is the devil.

And what do you do with that? When he says, it is finished, into his father's hands he commends his spirit. And they took the body down, and they laid him in the grave. I remember thinking one time, as I was reading through the Gospels, well, isn't that wonderful?

Because when you read about the descent from the cross and the burial in Joseph's new tomb, you read that they buried, they took the body down, they begged the body of Pilate, they took the body down, they wrapped it in linen clothes with a hundred pounds of myrrh and aloes, and then they buried it in the tomb.

And I thought, isn't that nice to see? They're speaking about the Lord's body without his spirit in it, as though it merely were something of clay. And I thought, well, I understand, because that's what we think of a person whom we bury, a believer whom we bury.

We say, well, no, he's not here. She's not here. She has risen. Absent from the body is to be present with the Lord. And we think, well, now, I thought to myself when I was reading, well, it's the same thing with the Lord, evidently, because they took it down, they wrapped it in linen clothes, they buried it in the sepulcher, and then, of course, the third day, early in the morning, he came back into that body, and he rose from the grave.

And then I got stuck, because when I came to read the very same incident in John, I read that there they buried Jesus. And it's something like the word in Acts chapter 8, when they buried Stephen. They made great lamentation over him, but hadn't he gone to the glory?

Hadn't he said, Lord Jesus, receive my spirit, and pass the way into the heavens? Yes, but it says they buried Stephen. And so that presented a problem to me. Was it really Jesus, then, whom they buried in the sepulcher?

He had said on the cross it is finished. But this work has to be done as well. It is an integral part of the great redemption that he came to effectuate. And he hasn't gone into the tomb yet. And he hasn't destroyed death.

And he hasn't annulled him that had the power of death. And he hasn't stepped out of death yet. But he said it was finished. How do you understand that? Perhaps we haven't captured correctly what the Lord was referring to when he said it is finished.

And perhaps we haven't understood correctly either what he was meaning when he says, I have glorified thee on the earth. I have finished, or having finished, the work which thou gavest me to do. Now, the first thing we automatically think is, well, that was the work of redemption.

That was the work of reconciliation. And when we do that, we present ourselves with a problem because he hadn't done that work yet. But there is a work that the Father entrusted to him that is finished.

And he can say, in the time element, in the time frame in which this prayer was uttered, I have glorified thee on the earth. I have finished the work which thou gavest me to do. And then when you read down the chapter, you discover that same thing is repeated over and over and over again.

He has done this. He has done that. He has done something else. He has glorified his Father on the earth because he's finished the work that the Father gave him to do. Now, the whole, the crux of the difficulty is this.

What work is he talking about? So, we must examine, when we have a problem like this, we must examine the chapter or the passage in which it is expressed. And let us not be too difficult or complicated about this whole thing.

Let us look at it the way it is and examine what he said when he said it. There's no difficulty, of course, in the fact that he said in verse 4, I have glorified thee on the earth. That's quite evident, isn't it?

His whole pathway was directed to the glory of his Father. Everything he did, everything he said. The only one who never said anything that he had to retract. The only one who took a step that he never had to retrace.

The only one who nurtured or cherished a thought that he should never have nurtured or cherished. Everything he has done, his life was a constant incense offering to God. He had pleased Him always, hadn't he?

But there's something more specific, surely, than even that. That the fact that he has glorified the Father on earth, we wouldn't have any difficulty with that. But when he says, I've finished the work that thou gavest me to do, then we're stopped.

We don't know what to say. So, let us do what is always wise to do. When a problem arises in the interpretation of Scripture, let us examine the context either before what precedes or what follows. And surely, as nearly always is the case, we find an answer to our problem in the context where the problem is expressed.

Jesus’ Stewardship of the Father’s Name and Words

Of course, there's no problem here with the Lord. We make the problem. And the problem we make is because we try to interpret or understand this, I have finished the work which thou gavest me to do, the one specific thing.

Now, let's not do that. All right. Let us discover what it is he says. He has finished that work according to verse 4. Then we come down to verse 6, and he says this, I have manifested thy name unto the men which thou gavest me out of the world.

Thine they were, and thou gavest them me. I have manifested thy name. Let me suggest to you that this is one of the details of the work that he came to do. He came to reveal the Father. He came to express the Father.

And he started that in a very unexpected way in John's Gospel, because he starts it in John chapter 4 with the woman of Samaria. He didn't reveal to Nicodemus who the Father was or the Father's name. But when you turn the page and come to the woman at Sychar's well, you discover that's exactly what he did.

He displayed, he revealed the Father's name to the woman of Samaria with the five husbands that she had had and with the state in which she was presently living. And it was to the woman of Samaria that he spoke about true worship and that it was the Father who was seeking such to worship him.

Why didn't he tell Nicodemus that? Here's the teacher of Israel. Here's the master of theology. Here's one whose very name, Nicodemus, means the one who was to subdue, to conquer the people by his theology, by his knowledge.

And it's not to this Nicodemus that the Lord reveals the Father. And yet he came to do that very thing. But it was to the woman. It was not to the head. It was to the heart that he, as the Son, revealed the Father.

And, of course, the Father was never known, really was he, until the Son came. Now, I know there are passages, and they're very few and very brief, in the Old Testament, where God is mentioned as the Father.

Malachi is one of them. Have we not all one Father? Did not one God create us? But that's not in the same sense. It took the Son to reveal the Father. And now that the Son is here, this is his purpose in coming, to manifest the Father.

You recall that he said on one occasion, No man knows the Son but the Father. That's final. And no man knows the Father but the Son, and to whomsoever the Son will reveal Him. Now, why did he say that no one knows the Son, just the Father?

And yet he says, he, being the Son, knew the Father, but also he was going to reveal the Father to others besides himself. The Father may be known, but no one, no one solves the mystery of the Son. He is beyond comprehension.

He is that mystery of God, manifest in flesh. He is that wonderful statement, the Word, the Word which is the expression of God at all times and in all places, became flesh. That word hit me a little while ago.

The Word was made, or became flesh. And I thought, how often. This isn't true of us. The invisible Word, which is the expression of the thought, takes on visibility by becoming flesh. Our doctrine, my brethren, at times, is invisible, intangible, non-palpable, and it never gets converted into flesh.

Not the problem. We say a lot, we know a lot, we profess a lot, but when the Word becomes flesh, that's God being manifested. And to put into the substance of flesh every day that we live, the Word, our Lord, who is the Word, who also became flesh, that's the revelation of God in our lives, and for that reason we are here.

So he says, I have manifested thy name to the men that thou gavest me out of the Word. Five times over, the Lord speaks here about the men having been given. We may look more of that later. So this is part of the work that he came to do.

He came to reveal God. He came to manifest the Father. Nobody could know the Father without the Son. I am the way he said, the truth and the light. No man comes unto the Father but by me. But when you turn that over, and remember that he, at the same time, said, no man knows the Son but the Father.

What a mystery it is. A compelling mystery, isn't it? We say, well, it would be far easier to know the Lord for he is substance. He is man, totally man, wholly man, always man, and ever will be man. The invisible becomes visible.

The omnipresent becomes localized. The great eternal takes on humanity. We say to ourselves, well now, we can understand that better than we can understand what we cannot see. But, says the Lord, no. No man knows the Son.

No man has plumbed the depths of this person who is God and man as we were referring to him last night in the ram caught in the thicket, if you remember. So, here he is. He is the expression of God. And he is the expression of God as man.

Nobody knows. Nobody has felt the depths. Nobody has been to the intricacies of this mysterious person, this glorious person, the Word made flesh. But he can say that in that capacity, he is the one who has manifested the Father because he that hath seen me said he has seen the Father.

But the Son is beyond knowing. I recall one time, I was speaking up in Toronto, and there was a man sitting in the audience and he, in fact, I had to take him back to his apartment afterwards. I did not bring him, but I was to take him back in the car.

And he was from Egypt. His father was a professor of Islam and he had studied Islam. And he said to me going home, I can see him sitting beside me in the front seat of the car, he said, I don't understand you Christians.

I don't understand you Christians. And I said, Why? And he said, You have three gods. No, I said, We don't have three gods. Yes, he said, You do. Because, you see, you were speaking tonight about Jesus on earth and you proved to us that he was God.

And you said that while he was here on earth, he heard a voice out of heaven and it was his Father God who was speaking to him. So, now he says, You have two gods, you Christians. And then he said, you said, after he had gone, he had sent down God the Holy Spirit.

So, he says, You Christians have got three gods and I don't understand it. And I said to him, I don't either. And he looked at me quick. I can see him swiveling in the front seat. He said, What did you say?

I said, There's no Christian that understands. We don't understand God. We believe in God. Our faith and confidence is in God. But we don't understand God. And, you know, he settled back in his seat and he read us a card and he said, That's sufficient.

Now I understand why you believe it. He said, Your holy book teaches you that there are three persons who are just one God. And you tell me that you don't understand it but you believe it. I accept that, he said.

There's no more question about it. But that is the truth, isn't it? Can we say we're going to rise to the level of deity? Can we say intellectually we're going to come to the stature of omniscience, of the great God?

Can we understand God? Well, we can't understand God. We have had the Father manifested to us in the Son. But all the intricacies of that glorious, majestic person who is the Son, we don't understand.

Because it's the mystery of God manifest in flesh. And this is what our Lord says here. He says, I have manifested thy name, verse 6, unto the men which thou gavest me out of the Word. Then he went on to say, verse 7,.

The Son as Faithful Steward of the Father’s Mission

Now they have known that all things whatsoever thou hast given me are from thee, and I have given unto them. This is, may I suggest to you, the account of a steward son speaking to his father at the end of his service.

I have given unto them the words or the sayings which thou gavest me, and they have received them, and have known surely that I came out from thee, and they have believed that thou didst send me. I took a little bit of trouble recently to go through the Gospels by John, and I jotted down every time when the Lord Jesus spoke about having been sent.

He who sent me is true. He sent me. I didn't come of myself. I came down from heaven not to do mine own will, but the will of him who sent me. And as a good steward, perhaps you have also counted the times when the Lord Jesus, when he was here, ever expressed his own will.

That I didn't come down to do mine own will. I came down to do the will of him who sent me. In fact, you also might be interested to know how many times when our Lord was here, he ever expressed his own will.

Could you run over that quickly by memory? How many times are there when the Lord was here on earth that he actually used the verb to will? I said this one place, and a brother came to me after. He was a brother this time.

He was a sister the other time. Anyway, it doesn't make much difference. He came to me afterwards, and he said, Oh, Brother Dave, you've missed a lot of times when the Lord said, expressed his own will.

I said, like, for example, he said if I go away, I will come again. Yes, he said he would come again, but what he is saying is he's using the future tense of the word to come. He's not using the verb to will to do anything.

Oh, he said, I didn't realize that because I could have thought of a lot of things, a lot of times when the Lord said, I will do this, I will do that, I will go, I will heal her, I will this, and I said, yeah, that's right.

But what he is doing there, he's saying something he will do in the future, but that's not the word, that's not the verb to will to do something, to express his own will about it. For example, the leper came to him, was it Luke chapter 5, and he said, Master, if thou wilt, if thou wilt, if you will to do it, you can make me clean.

That's the first time in our Lord's life when he ever said, I will. That's the verb to will, personally to will to do something. It is my will, he said, and he touched him, and he was clean. But you go through and find the times when the Lord said that, and you won't find enough times to put on one hand.

You see, there's another time in connection with the, and it's a very impressive one, this one, he said about Jerusalem. Oh, Jerusalem, Jerusalem, how often I willed to gather your children together as a hen gathers her chickens under her wings, and you willed not.

There is a very mysterious thing. There is an occasion when the will of the creature frustrated, don't condemn me too quickly now for saying that, frustrated the will of God. Is it possible? That's what the Lord said.

It was my will to gather your children together, and it was your will that I should not do it. And he didn't do it. Nice little passage for our five-point. Now, here is the Lord saying, then, that what he had, what was true, he was given the words or the sayings which the Father gave him, the one who sent him.

I didn't tell you that there are 36 times in the Gospel by John when the Lord Jesus refers to the fact that he was sent, sent, sent, sent. You remember when he healed the blind man in John chapter 9, and he put clay in his eyes, and you wondered about that.

Why when he was born blind would he put more clay on his eyes and increase the blindness if it were possible? There must be something here. And then he sent him down to the fool of Siloam, and said, Watch.

Please notice, if you have the interest to do so, that every time the Lord healed a blind man, he healed him in connection with the place where he found him. So, the blind man of Jericho is one case, and the blind man of Bethsaida is another case, and here the blind man in Jerusalem is another case.

What he did at Bethsaida wasn't what he did at Jerusalem. What he did at Jerusalem wasn't what he did at Jericho. And every time the Lord healed a blind man, he did it differently. And when he put the clay on his eyes, what did he do?

He is expressing something. Jerusalem. Jerusalem who saw not and refused to see anything more that this man was a Galilean. And he put the clay of Galilee. They put the clay of Galilee on their eyes. And when he went down to the fool of Siloam and washed, what does Siloam mean?

Sent. When he washed at the fool of Siloam, his eyes were opened. If Jerusalem had only seen that the one whom they knew only as Jesus of Nazareth was the great messenger with a great mission from the Father.

He it was who was sent into the world. And when the blind man washed that clay from his eyes and the vision, the image, the example of his humanity and being a Nazarene of Nazareth more than anything was removed.

And the fact that he was to be known as one whom God had sent. That's why I went through the gospel by John discovered 36 times. The Lord speaks about being sent. He that sent me is true. I speak unto you the things which I have received of him that sent me.

The doctrine is not mine, but it's his that sent me. The Father taught me. And this is what I am speaking to you. And that's what he's saying here. He is recognizing, he is admitting that he has given them verse 8, the words which the Father gave him.

When I came across that expression back there the first time I was rather amazed at it. My doctrine is not mine. The Father taught me. And what he taught me is what I'm teaching you. You see the position of the steward?

Father had given him the words. He'd given him the sayings. He had taught him the doctrine. And everything that he did was what he had received from the Father to do. Now that doesn't put him out of the scope of our stewardship either, does it?

Guarding Those Entrusted to Us

Has he not committed to us a stewardship? Has he not entrusted things to us? And have we been faithful to that stewardship? Look what he says down farther. In verse 11 he talks about those whom thou hast given me.

And then he says in verse 12, while I was with them in the world, I kept them in thy name. Those that thou gavest me, I have guarded. None of them is lost. Here's another part of his stewardship that he is expressing.

And we'll see if we get time to look at that, how many times he mentions in the chapter that the Father gave him these men. And as I said to you the other night, he told Peter in the garden that he could have had 72 ,000 angels merely for the asking.

For the legion was 6 ,000 soldiers in Rome at that time. And he said he could have had 12 legions of angels out of 72. Can you imagine 72 ,000 angels just for the asking? The Father didn't give him 12 legions, did he?

He gave him 12 men. The men that thou gavest me out of the world, he says, I have given them and I have kept them. And the second time he uses this word is to watch over, is to be awake in the vigil of the night.

And he had watched over them. What did he say in the upper room, you remember? Simon, Simon, the devil has demanded to have you all to sift you all as wheat. But I have prayed for thee. He singles Pedro out because of the self-confidence of this stalwart disciple of his.