WWUTT 978 The High Priestly Prayer

Jesus' high priestly prayer, which he prays in John chapter 17, one of the most beautiful prayers in all of scripture. One of the reasons is because he prays for you and me when we understand the text.

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Reading John 17 and Introducing the High Priestly Prayer

Thank you, Becky. In our study of the Gospel of John, we come to one of the most beautiful chapters in all of scripture, and that is Jesus' high priestly prayer in John chapter 17. We're going to start looking at this today and then have to come back to this study next.

Week.

But to begin our look at this chapter, I'll start by reading the whole thing. John 17, starting in verse 1. 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.

I have 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 have given them the words that you gave me, and they have received them and have come to know in truth that I came from you, and they have believed that you sent me. I am praying for them. I am not praying for the world, but for those whom you have given me, for they are yours.

All mine are yours, and yours are mine, and I am glorified in them. And I am no longer in the world, but they are in the world, and I am 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 have guarded them, and not one of them has been lost, except the son of destruction, that the scripture might be fulfilled. But now I am coming to you.

And these things I speak in the world, that they may have my joy fulfilled in themselves. I have 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 the 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.

I do not ask for these only, but also for those who will believe in me through their word, that they may all be one, just as you, Father, are in me, and I in you, that they also may be in us, so that the world may believe that you have sent me.

The glory that you have given me I have given to them, that they may be one even as we are.

One.

I in them, and you in me, that they may become perfectly one, so that the world may know that you sent me and loved them even as you loved me. Father, I desire that they also, whom you have given me, may be with me where I am, to see my glory that you have given me because you loved me before the foundation of the.

World.

O righteous Father, even though the world does not know you, I know you, and these know that you have sent me. I made known to them your name, and I will continue to make it known, that the love with which you have loved me may be in them, and I in them.

Christ Our Great High Priest

So why is this called the High Priestly Prayer? Well, it's because Jesus is our Great High Priest. Hebrews 3 .1,. Therefore, holy brothers, you who share in a heavenly calling, consider Jesus the High Priest of our confession.

Hebrews 4 .14 -15,. Since then we have a Great High Priest who has passed through the heavens, Jesus the Son of God, let us hold fast our confession. For we do not have a High Priest who is unable to sympathize with our weaknesses, but one who in every respect has been tempted as we are, yet without sin.

Hebrews 5 .5,. So also Christ did not exalt himself to be made a High Priest, but was appointed by him who said to him, You are my Son, today I have begotten you. Now a priest was a representative of the people, specifically he spoke to God on behalf of the people.

It was the priest that did that for the people. And he was held to a higher standard, a holier calling than the rest of the people were. Now all of us should pursue that holiness, but the priest himself is going to be the model of that holiness for the rest of the people.

And so Jesus was that for us. He was our Great High Priest entering into the Holy of Holies for us before the Father on our behalf to atone for our sins. And God received his sacrifice. He also advocates for the Father on our behalf.

He is our mediator between God and man. So we take our request to Christ. We ask in his name and he takes it before the Father. Of course, Jesus also says we now pray to the Father through his name. We don't have to go through Christ like saying, Jesus, would you please ask the Father?

We don't have to do that. We can go directly to the Father because Jesus is that way, that access that we have to God. And it is because he is our Great High Priest that we can come before the Father.

So Jesus being our Great High Priest, the veil in the temple has been torn. It has been removed. That separated the Holy of Holies from the rest of the people. Only the High Priest could go into that place and he could only do it once a year.

But now that veil has been removed and anyone can enter into the Holy of Holies, into the presence of God anytime we please. We may pray to him and call upon him and he hears our prayers because we have a Great High Priest and that is Jesus Christ, the Righteous One.

Here is the final prayer that Jesus prays to the Father, at least according to the Gospel of John, on behalf of his disciples before he is to go and be arrested and become that perfect sacrifice for us.

He has been perfected in his earthly ministry and now he is ready to lay himself down on the altar. And so before making atonement for sins with his disciples there in the upper room, he lifted his eyes up to heaven, John 17, 1, a very common posture for prayer among these first century Hebrews.

And upon lifting his eyes to heaven, he prays this. He says, Father, the hour has come. Glorify your son, that the son may glorify you. And that's the beginning to this high priestly prayer. Now it's it's given in three parts.

The first part of his prayer, which goes from verses two, well, verse one, he starts in verse one, verses one through five, Jesus is praying for himself. And then in verses six through 19, he is praying for his disciples who are there with him in the upper room.

And then in verses 20 through 26, he prays more specifically for those who will be added to the disciples. He prays for his church. He prays for you and me, you and I, we are being prayed for here in this high priestly.

Prayer.

And it's that section in verses 20 through 26. So we'll talk about that section when we come back to that probably next week. But here Jesus is praying for himself. He begins by praying for himself and his request is glorify your son.

Well, before we get to that part, let's look at there's there's a statement even right before that father, of course, addressing his father in heaven. The hour has come. And that hour includes Jesus being betrayed, which is about to happen in the Garden of Gethsemane.

Judas turning Jesus over to the officials who are then going to take him before the high priest. He's going to be tried. He will be taken before Pilate and tried. He will be flogged. He will be crucified.

He will be buried in a tomb, risen again from the grave, and then will show himself to his disciples, as well as of 500 other brothers, according to what Paul says in First Corinthians chapter 15. And then Jesus will ascend back to the father.

All of that is going to happen in what Jesus is referring to here as the last hour that or that particular hour. We'll say it that way. The hour has come. And he says later on in verse 11, and I am no longer in the world, but they are in the.

World.

And I am 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. So Jesus is praying for things that have not even yet happened as he lifts up his even his disciples in prayer.

So that's all part of this hour that has arrived. The hour has come and everything that Jesus is praying for is flowing out from that hour that has been appointed by God from before the foundation of the world, that the son of God would be crucified as an atoning sacrifice for the sins of his people.

That work is about to be accomplished. And then the people of God realized through the preaching of the gospel, which will be done by the disciples that the father gave to Christ and belong to him and that he is going to commission to go out preaching.

And then through that preaching, many others are going to come to believe. And that's who Jesus prays for in verses 20 through 26. You and I included in that because we have come to believe in Christ through this apostolic preaching, that gospel that had gone out from the apostles and we continue to preach today.

This is all part of of how God was going to bring about the salvation for his elect. It was through the preaching of the gospel of Jesus Christ. And so this is all happening flowing out from this hour that Jesus is is announcing before the father in the presence of his disciples.

Father, the hour has come. Glorify your son, that the son may glorify you. And so all that's going to happen through Christ, he does to the praise of God the father. And I've quoted this to you many times before.

But in Philippians chapter two, beginning in verse five, where we are told to have the mind of Christ, who, though he was in the form of God, did not count equality with God a thing to be grasped, but emptied himself by taking the form of a servant being born in the likeness of men and being found in human form.

He humbled himself by becoming obedient to the point of death, even death on a cross. Therefore God is highly exalted him and bestowed on him the name that is above every name, so that at the name of Jesus, every knee should bow in heaven and on earth and under the earth.

And every tongue confess that Jesus Christ is Lord to the glory of God the father. So all things that Christ has done has been to the glory of the father. And he is asking here that the father glorify him because Jesus was faithful to the will of the father.

He did everything in submission to the father's will, therefore in fulfillment of all of that Christ is appealing to the father that he be glorified. In other words, receive the sacrifice that he is about to give.

And we know that the father received the sacrifice that Jesus made for us by raising him from the dead. So to show that the atonement had been accomplished, that propitiation had been made for the sins of those whom the father had given to the son, he received the sacrifice of the son by raising him from the dead.

Now, the very fact that Jesus is asking to be glorified is a statement of his divinity because we know from the Old Testament that God shares his glory with no one. So for Jesus, the son to say, glorify your son, that the son may glorify you.

This is Jesus making a divine claim that he is one with the father. And that's, of course, a statement that even comes up several times over the course of this prayer. 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.

This goes back to John 10, where Jesus says, all that the father has given to me, I give eternal life and no one is able to snatch them out of my hand. No one is able to snatch them out of my father's hand.

I and the father are one. So just as Jesus made that statement there in chapter 10, so he is saying, saying again in this prayer, I give eternal life to all whom you have given to me. He has authority over all flesh.

That's a statement that comes also from Matthew 28, 18, all authority in heaven and on earth has been given to me and then says to his disciples, now, therefore, go and make disciples of all nations. In verse three, Jesus says, and this is eternal life, that they know you, the only true God and Jesus Christ, whom you have sent.

This is how we know that we have eternal life, because we know the father and we know the son. And it's not just that we know about them or we have knowledge of them, but we have heard the word that has come from Christ, which was given to him by the father.

And we believe it and follow it. And if we believe in Christ and in his word, then we have salvation and assurance of that salvation. One of the most common questions that I get asked, whether it's by members of my congregation or somebody listening to the podcast sends in an email, I think one of the questions I get asked the most, if not the question I am asked the most generally has to do with assurance.

How can I know that I am saved? How can I have assurance? Generally assurance or a lack of assurance is because the person has been recognizing and identifying their own inadequacies. They have been stumbling in their pursuit of holiness, which we're all going through sanctification and you're not going to be perfect in that pursuit.

So therefore you are going to stumble, falter, sin, asking God for forgiveness, granting forgiveness, continuing to try, pursue once again, taking the word of God, applying it to your life, taking all temptation, thought, making it obedient to Christ.

As you go through this particular process, when you stumble along the way, you recognize your own inadequacy, your powerlessness to be holy. And it will sometimes cause feelings of inadequacy or doubt to wonder if you're even saved or if you can ever truly have a perfect assurance of your salvation.

But the reason why you're coming into that problem is because you're looking at yourself. The only way we can truly have assurance is if we look at Christ. We know that he is holy and he is perfect and he has given us this faith that we have.

And though we are faithless, he remains faithful, as Paul said to Timothy, for he cannot disown himself. If we've been sealed by the Holy Spirit, if we belong to him because the father has given us to him, then it is by Christ that we are saved and we have assurance of that salvation looking at him, not looking at us.

So be careful about getting caught up in your own inadequacies. That is why you will fall into a lack of assurance of your own salvation. It's because you're looking at yourself instead of looking at Christ.

But here, Jesus says this is eternal life, that they know you, the only true God and Jesus Christ, whom you have sent again, even here in this prayer, saying assurance comes by looking at the father and looking at the son and being reminded that we are sealed in the Holy Spirit of God, who has been poured into our hearts, all those who are followers of Jesus Christ.

Jesus says in verse four, 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.

What in the world was God doing? What in the world? I was going to say, what in the world was God doing before the world came into existence? He couldn't have been doing it because the world wasn't there.

Anyway, so what was God doing before he created the world, before he created us? Well, the answer to that question we have right here in John 17, 5. We can glean an answer to that question from some other places as well.

But I think this is the quick go to place to know what God was doing before the creation of all things. And it's that he was glorifying in himself, the father, the son, the Holy Spirit, all glorifying in one another for all eternity.

And we get to be part of that. We who believe in Jesus Christ, we are going to be brought into his eternal kingdom where we will glorify God forever. Beware thinking of this as the way it's depicted in the cartoons of somebody sitting on a cloud with a harp and just kind of strumming and singing songs.

And that kind of looks boring the way that they portray it in comics and cartoons and things like that. But we know that it is going to be incredibly glorious forever because it's what God was doing before he created anything.

He was glorifying in himself and God was not bored doing that. And so we are privileged by the grace of God to be able to partake in that glory that the father, son and Holy Spirit had with himself for all eternity before we were made and are blessed to be invited to become part of that celebration, which we will do for all eternity when Christ transforms our lowly body to be like his glorious body.

And then we will see him as he is because we will be made to be like him. First John three, two. So glorify me, Jesus says, in your own presence, with the glory I had with you before the world existed.

And we'll stop there and pick up this high priestly prayer. I'll even come back to that statement next week. And then we'll go from there into Jesus prayer for his own disciples. Let's conclude with prayer ourselves, our heavenly father.

We thank you for the gift of your son. We thank you that we may know you through Jesus Christ and we have access to the father even now that we may express our delight in you and know that you delight in us, that we can come to you with our griefs and our concerns.

And we know that you want to hear from us for, as Peter said in first Peter five, cast all your anxieties upon him for he cares for you. And so, father, we ask for your comfort, that you would give us assurance of our salvation in Jesus Christ, the forgiveness of our sins, that we understand the things and ways that happened to us today are ultimately all for your glory and are shaping us in the image of the son.

So let us be thankful for those things and give you all praise for Jesus did everything to the praise of your glorious grace. It's in his name that we pray.

Amen.

You've been listening to When We Understand the Text with Pastor Gabe Hughes. Monday, Tuesday, and Wednesday, Gabe will be going through a New Testament study. Then on Thursday, we look at an Old Testament book.

On Friday, we take questions from the listeners and viewers. Tomorrow, we'll pick up on an Old Testament study, When We Understand the Text.