The High Priestly Prayer: Part One | Sermon 01/28/2024

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The High Priestly Prayer. So starting in v.

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1 of the Gospel according to John 17, hear now the inerrant and infallible words of the living and true

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God. Jesus spoke these things. And lifting up His eyes to heaven,

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He said, Father, the hour has come. Glorify Your Son that the

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Son may glorify You, even as You gave Him authority over all flesh, that to all whom

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You have given Him He may give eternal life. This is eternal life, that they may know

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You, the only true God, and Jesus Christ whom You have sent. I glorified

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You on the earth, having accomplished the work which You have given me to do. Now, Father, glorify me together with Yourself with the glory which

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I had with You before the world was. Thus ends the reading of God's holy and magnificent word.

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We must pray. Lord, we come before You at this moment.

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Such an amazing section of sacred Scripture, Lord. We need

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You, God. We need You. The spirit is willing, but the flesh is weak,

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Lord. Focus can be robbed from us.

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Tiredness can come over our eyes. But today, O Lord, help us by Your Spirit to see

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Your word for what it is. Let us see this magnificent prayer today and for the next three weeks.

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God, we thank You that it was recorded for us. We thank You for all that it means, even for us as Your children.

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So, God, please, I ask You that You would speak through me today. And please bring this word to the hearts and minds of Your people.

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And let us see Your glory this afternoon. We pray this in Christ's name. Church, we have finally come to one of the most unparalleled portions of sacred

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Scripture. It's one of the most beloved pieces of the Bible. And I would also say that it's one of the most unique.

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It's often called the High Priestly Prayer. And that's what it is. It's a prayer.

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But it's not just any prayer. This is, as Carson says, petition, proclamation, and revelation.

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This, church, is a glimpse into the very heart of God. This is triune communication.

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This is the prayer of our Lord, the Eternal Son of God, to the

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Father. He's going back to His Father. He's been saying that for many chapters now.

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He's going back to His Father by route of a shameful and painful death.

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And so He prays after all that He has done and before what

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He must finally do. So lofty are these words, church, that it's as if we get to peek into heaven.

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We need not a tower of Babel to climb the heights to heaven when Christ will take us there in this prayer.

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Spurgeon called this prayer the arrow that ascended from earth to the

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Father's throne. The Puritan Anthony Burgess said John 17 flies us into the sky like an eagle showing us the highest things of God.

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Dietrich Bonhoeffer called this prayer a thunderbolt fallen from the sky to the earth.

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You see, the truths in it are expansive. The more you look, the more you'll see.

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John 17 is like a vast ocean. We simply won't be able to see it and experience it all in our three -part series.

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You see, the depths and the width and the length are too much for us.

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We will only be touching the surface of the water. We've talked about it before.

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The Apostle John wrote the prologue in chapter 1 and has from that moment sought to, by the

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Holy Spirit, show us all that he wrote was true and accurate as seen in the life, works, and words of Jesus the

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Christ. And John 17 is the culmination of this, you guys. It's the culmination of Jesus' life in earthly ministry right before the cross where He must die.

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It's the summary of the Gospel according to John thus far. And this prayer is like a capstone to chapters 13, 14, 15, and 16.

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Those chapters we saw were recorded in such a way that they gave us the encouragement and the instructions of Christ to His disciples the

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Thursday night of Passion Week, the day before Good Friday.

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And we saw that they celebrated the Passover. Then Jesus dismissed

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Judas, the betrayer. And I told you that since the outsider was gone, since he left,

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Judas, the eleven remained, and Jesus was then free to teach

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His apostles. They left the upper room. It's possible. We've talked about this. They've been walking in Jerusalem.

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They've seen something like a vine, a vineyard. They're walking to where they'll eventually get to the

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Garden, right? The Garden of Gethsemane. We know that. That's where He'll be captured.

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Then He'll be taken from there and tried. That's all that's going to happen. They've left the upper room, and while walking,

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He gives them promises. He gives them promises of love, promises of the Holy Spirit, promises of peace and joy.

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But He also warns them of what is coming. What's coming and what they're going to face when

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He leaves, okay? They don't get it now, but they will. We talked about that last week.

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They don't understand it all. But there will come a day when they remember all that He said, and they will be taught all things by the

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Holy Spirit. That was His promise. But despite it all, they have been told that they will scatter.

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They will leave Him. They've learned that the man that they look up to the most just after Jesus, who is

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Peter, they've learned that He's going to deny Jesus three times. They're going to scatter.

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They're going to desert Him. Peter's even going to deny Him three times. At this point, all feels like it's about to be lost.

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They've learned beforehand of their failures, but even so, what's been amazing is

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Jesus has told them to not worry. In fact, we saw last week,

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He says, the Father loves you. You're going to leave me. You're going to desert me, but the

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Father loves you. That's grace, man. That's grace. It's incredible.

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Even though Jesus has said this, sorrow and grief have filled their hearts.

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All of it has now compounded to the increasing, their confusion and their lack of understanding.

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And so what does Jesus do? He intercedes. He prays. In this prayer, we will see

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Him pray on His own behalf. That's what we're in today. The first sermon is Jesus praying on His own behalf.

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Next week is the second sermon, and He's going to be praying for the immediate disciples in His context.

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And then the third part to this John 17 series will be when Jesus prays for the disciples who are in the future, who have not even yet been born or not even yet believed yet, okay?

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So that's what this is today. He's praying on His own behalf. Now, prayer for Jesus has not been unusual, has it?

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On the contrary, Jesus is the archetype of a praying person.

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In Luke chapter three, Jesus prayed at His own baptism, and the Father said out loud,

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You are my beloved Son in whom I am well pleased. In the account of Jesus walking on the water right before treading on the sea in amazing power,

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He prayed. He prayed by Himself. There are many references to Jesus going off alone to pray after healing people or teaching the large crowds.

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In Luke chapter nine, Jesus prayed and all of a sudden He was transfigured, and it said that His clothing was bright and white and His face shone, and in the

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Greek it's saying that it shone like lightning. It's how bright it was.

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Each time Jesus prayed, we never got to hear what He said to the

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Father. You ever notice that? You can read Mark, Matthew, or Luke.

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There's very few times, in fact, there's only like two, I believe, where you hear

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Jesus audibly praying to the Father, and you know what He's saying. Now, you might say,

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Pastor Wade, what about the Lord's Prayer? What about Matthew chapter six? But that's the thing.

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This in Matthew chapter six, the Lord's Prayer was instruction to His disciples on how they should pray.

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They go, Master, how should we pray? And He goes, pray then in this way.

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Our Father who is in heaven, hallowed be Your name. Right, and you can go on through that. He recited it.

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But Jesus didn't need to be forgiven of His trespasses. He didn't need protection from the evil one.

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He's God. And so that prayer wasn't necessarily a prayer from Him to His Father.

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That was instruction for them. He is sinless. That was for them. But John 17 is unique.

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It's like a veil is pulled back for us. We're on holy ground. We're hearing what happens in the most holy place.

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John 17 is a gift to us from God. Jesus knew that we would need these words.

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And He shows us He constantly lives to make intercession for us. It's Hebrews 7 .25.

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But the purpose was multi -layered. Glory is in mind here.

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The Shekinah God -only glory. Christ's authority is in mind here.

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His humility and His humanity. The nature of the eternal

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Son of God is in mind here. The pre -incarnation reality before He came to earth.

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His mission accomplished. All of that is in mind in this prayer.

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So now that we know what we're peering at, let's take a deeper look. Verse one. Jesus spoke these things and lifting up His eyes to heaven,

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He said, Father, the hour has come. Glorify Your Son that the Son may glorify

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You. So Jesus looked up. Jesus looked up to heaven.

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He looked upward. As many have rightly pointed out, this is different than the tax collector, or who also is called the publican, and the

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Pharisee in Luke 18. You see, the tax collector was unwilling to lift his eyes to heaven.

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And he beat at his breast. Have mercy on me, God, a sinner. He was unwilling to look to God.

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He knew he was unworthy to turn his face to the Lord, but Jesus isn't. Jesus isn't unworthy to face

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God, to turn His eyes to God. Christ is worthy. He has no sin. He can lift up His eyes.

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This is His very right, church. Even so, in the

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Luke 18 story of the tax collector and the Pharisee, the Pharisee did look up to heaven, right?

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The Pharisee looked up to heaven, and it said in the text that he prayed to himself, like he is his own

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God. Oh, I do all these things. I'm glad I'm not like that man.

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And he had the boldness and the audacity to look up to heaven, that Pharisee.

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And Jesus said in that moment in Luke 18, that the man who asked for mercy, who was the great sinner, walked away justified.

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But Jesus is neither like the tax collector who wouldn't turn his head to heaven, neither is

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He like the Pharisee who self -righteously turned his face to God.

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Jesus is unlike either. He turned His face to heaven because He is

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God. The eternal

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Son looks up to His Father in heaven. And again, in His model of how to pray,

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He tells them to say, our Father who is in heaven. Jesus says

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Father here. It's personal, it's possessive. In fact, as we go through the rest of John 17, we're gonna see the way that Jesus speaks to the

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Father, and it's gonna become more intimate and more magnificent. You'll see it as we go on. There is an intimacy here.

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True relational knowledge. Such Father. He knows Him in a way that no one has ever known the

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Father. Last week we saw Jesus say, the Father loves you. The Good Father provides all over the globe.

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He continues to care and provide for even the smallest of creatures. He gave us life.

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We are made in God's image and likeness. We get to enjoy all that He has done and made every single day.

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We get to taste and see that the Lord is good, amen? He is the perfect Father.

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And that's who Jesus turns His face to. Father, glorify me. Now Jesus, though, is not just any son.

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He's not just any son. We saw in chapter one, verse 14, that He is what's called the monogynes of the

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Father. Manas, genes, the unique and only

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Son of God. The only one. There is no one else in Jesus' status, excuse me.

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Father and son titles show us that they are of the same nature. You see,

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I am of the same kind or type as my dad. I'm a human like my dad.

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But the Son of God is of the same nature and being of His Father, divine.

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And yet there are not multiple gods even though both are the one God. He'll affirm that in verse three.

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No doubt, no one else in existence has ever spoken like this to God. No one.

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You read this in any other way. If any human spoke this way to the Father, it would be blasphemous.

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But Jesus is the unique Son. And He says His hour has come. Father, glorify

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Me. He says His hour has come. Since chapter two, He said that His hour was not yet.

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Then His hour was coming soon. And then His hour finally had come.

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In other words, this prayer has everything to do with the cross just as much as Himself or His disciples.

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Every moment in history has been brought to this point and been sovereignly decreed by God.

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And look, God's sovereignty is an occasion to pray to God rather than not.

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You see that? So many people say, you guys believe in God's sovereignty?

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He's in control of everything? Why pray then? Well, Jesus knows

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God's in full sovereignty and control and yet He prays. He prays.

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The hour has come. Single moments of history are not just predetermined but all things.

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Jesus' hour has always been as sure to come as God makes the sun to rise each day and I say even more so.

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God's will is about to be done. The humiliation, the propitiation, the exaltation and the glorification of Christ are about to coalesce into one event.

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And this is what's radical. Right here, Jesus prays glorify your son that the son may glorify you.

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This is more significant than you and I can really understand. This word glorify, doxaizo, is in the imperative form.

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That's the command form. All of us make requests of God, right? We ask God, God, will you do this?

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But Jesus uses the command form to the Father. Glorify your son.

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And He's not belittling the Father. He's not doing anything like that and making the

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Father less than. It's that Jesus can and should speak to the Father as an equal.

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They are co -equal, co -eternal, and that's why this is a mutual glorification of the

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Father and the Son. You see, a mere human couldn't reciprocate the glory

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God deserves from themselves to Him if given glory.

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The exchange rate would decrease its value. Let me say that in another way. If God said, you know what?

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I'm gonna give glory to Wade. Far be it from me, Lord. But let's just imagine for this analogy,

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I'm gonna give glory to Wade, and I expect Wade to glorify me back. The quality of the glory given from God to me and then from me back to Him would degrade, right?

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You get what I'm saying? God's glory that He gives to me and then I give back to Him would go down.

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But here in this example, the Son can say, glorify me so that I may glorify you.

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And the Father won't lose any degree of glory. It will be reciprocated with equality.

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It will be the same amount of glory. And you're going to notice today that I'm going to once again nail in aspects of the

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Trinity and the natures of Christ. Yes, there's gonna be some higher theology in this today, bear with me.

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If you have any questions after, I'm here for you. Because this is a substantial part of this prayer.

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And do you see this? This is what I call a God glory, God hyphen glory.

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There is a God glory. It's His glory. It's the kind of Shekinah glory that God alone possesses.

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It's His. Isaiah chapter 42, verse eight says what? I am the Lord, that is my name.

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I will not give my glory to another nor my praise. God does not share

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His glory. But Jesus gets the

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God glory. He gets the God only glory. And how is that possible? God has revealed

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Himself as triune in nature. Jesus is the Lord. That is

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His name. Father, Son, and Spirit. You see, Moses had been exposed to God's glory, but it was as if a residue.

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His face was shining. And that glory didn't come from Moses. It didn't stay on Moses for very long.

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Here, the glory is freely exchanged between the Father and the Son without losing any brilliance or brightness or holiness.

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You get that? The glory is exchanged, not degrading from one to the other.

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It's mutual glorification. It's mutually enriching. Giving of glory to one increases it in both.

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You see, if the Father glorifies the Son, the Son will glorify the Father.

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They will increase in glory. And that impacts the Spirit for that matter.

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But go to verse two. Even as You have given Him authority over all flesh, that to all whom

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You have given Him, He may give eternal life. And so just the same as the glory, we just saw in verse one, mutual glorification, right?

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Now here in verse two, mutual authority. Mutual authority, mutual glorification.

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Now mutual authority, mutual power. Jesus speaks in relation not to His pre -incarnate divine nature alone, but as the

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God -Man. Jesus the Christ. The One who also possesses full humanity.

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Because as the Eternal Son, He has always had full divine properties and attributes communicated to Him in the

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Trinity. He's always had this. But now, the

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Son of God has assumed in addition to His full divinity, full humanity.

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Therefore, in respect to His divinity, all authority has been His, okay?

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That's not what Jesus is saying here. All authority has already been His, but in respect to His humanity, it says right here, it is given.

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It is given. Even as you gave

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Him authority over all flesh. That wasn't the divine pre -incarnate

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Christ, that's the God -Man, totally God, totally man, Jesus Christ, it's been given. And really, what is most in view here in verse two is not even necessarily nature.

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Despite heretics trying to use the word, oh look. It was given.

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It was inherent. It wasn't inside of Him. It was given to Jesus. See, Jesus doesn't have all power.

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He's not God. They'll say that sort of thing, but that's not even what Jesus has in mind here.

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What's in view here is His mediatorial work. We see that right here. It says that to all whom you have given

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Him, He may give eternal life. That's what's in view here. The redemptive role over every human being given to Jesus from the

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Father to grant eternal life. In Him was the life and light of all men. The power of life.

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Whether creative, regenerative, or eternal, life is in Jesus' hands.

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He has all authority. Ephesians chapter one, verses 21 through 22 says that Christ is far above all rule and authority and power and dominion in every name that is named, not only in this age, but also in the one to come.

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And He put all things in subjection under His feet and gave Him His head over all things to the church.

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All things. John five told us that the Father also gave Him authority over all flesh to judge those who were not given to Him.

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Chapter five, verses 21 through 22, Jesus said, for just as the Father raises the dead and gives them life, even so the

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Son also gives life to whom He wishes. And here it is, for not even the

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Father judges anyone, but He has given all judgment to the Son. This is all authority.

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This is all power. And this authority is in contrast to what

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Adam possessed, the first man. Adam in Genesis was given the authority to subdue all creation.

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The word was rule over it. We saw that today in our catechism. He even got to name all the animals.

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He got to name the woman. Scripture calls Jesus the last Adam. With His authority,

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He actually accomplished what the first Adam could not. And it says that Jesus gives us all new names.

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He's the better Adam. He is the one that has all authority. He is the last and better and final and ultimate

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Adam. And all this of the false beliefs that Jesus came simply as a peace worker.

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He's a good example for society. Jesus said, judge not.

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Well, the same one that these people will appeal to for their agenda has all authority, even over them.

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All authority over them. In other words, Jesus has the divine prerogative to command all people on the face of the earth.

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Jesus can tell you what to do. Everything. And everyone is subject to this

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King. Every single person. All of this is His dominion and domain. And the shocking thing is, is that He doesn't come to earth and finding it all consumed with evil and destroys it.

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Like in Genesis chapter seven and eight, when God came and found that the evil was upon the earth, it was upon every living person and God destroyed everyone except for that one man and his family.

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No, God in Jesus Christ comes to this fallen world. He sees the same amount of evil.

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And this time He gives us the singular solution to escape the world's evil and its eternal destiny.

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And this is in the authority of Christ. It's over all flesh. He's the better Noah.

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He does what Noah can't do. He brings us through the waters. He rescues us.

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He's the better Adam. He's the better Noah. He's the better Moses. He's the better Joshua. He's the better David.

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He's the better everything. And He has power over all whom the

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Father has given Him. That's what it says right here. He is the giver. He gives His own life.

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He gives peace. He gives His instruction. He gives us the Holy Spirit. He gives us everything.

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When we had nothing, when you and I had nothing, He gave you everything.

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That's Christ. Jesus then defines this eternal life.

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He gives to those chosen by the Father. Verse 3, look at this. This is eternal life right here.

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This is eternal life that they may know You, the only true God and Jesus Christ whom

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You have sent. That's eternal life. Do you see? Verse 1,

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Father and Son mutually glorified. Verse 2, Father and Son mutually powerful and authoritative.

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Now verse 3, Father and Son are the objects of eternal life.

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Knowing them is what makes eternal life what it is. They are continually coordinated together.

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Knowing the Son is to know the Father. Knowing the Father is to know the Son, Jesus Christ, whom the

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Father has sent. Knowledge of God is never divorced from knowing Christ.

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Now I must make a required defense of this verse.

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I have to. Because it's been used so many times the wrong way. You see,

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Unitarians, people who believe not in a trinity, but they believe in monotheism, but they don't believe that Jesus is

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God or the Spirit is God. Unitarians in other groups, other false religions, will use this verse,

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John 17, 3, they'll use it to attack the deity of Christ. People will remove it from its greater context of John.

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They'll disregard John 1, which says in the beginning was the Logos, and the Logos was with God and was

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God. In that verse alone is trinity. How is God with God and eternal all at the same time in God?

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That's a triune relationship. And so people will take it away from that greater context.

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In every single other passage we have seen, goodness, you guys, how many times have we seen

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Jesus attest to His deity throughout John? It's been like every other passage that we've worked through there's been something that has shown that He is divine, that He's not merely human.

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And if you've been with us for this last year and a half, you can attest to that. But people who attack this will also remove it from its immediate context.

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They'll not consider verse 1, which showed mutual glorification. They'll not consider verse 2, which showed mutual power.

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But they especially will remove verse 3 from verse 5. Isolate verse 3 from verse 5.

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What did He say in verse 5? Glorify Me together with yourself with the glory which I had with you before the world was.

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That's huge. The glory He possessed with the Father before the world was.

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We're gonna get into that shortly. And so what the Unitarians look at in verse 3 is when

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Jesus says, the only true God. Okay, do you see that? They'll see when

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Jesus says, the only true God concerning the Father, they will say, look, Jesus doesn't call

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Himself God. He only calls the Father God. But for someone to come to this conclusion, they must approach this with false assumptions from the beginning.

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Let me explain. A lot of this comes even from my fellow pastor in Arizona, Dr. James White.

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He says, first, one must assume Unitarianism and refuse to see that title, that name,

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God, Phaos, that God can either refer to the person of the

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Father, or God can also be used more generically of the

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Godhead in total. Secondly, one must assume that if there is any difference between the

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Father and the Son, any difference at all, any distinction, then the

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Son is not truly deity. It's the old argument where difference in function does not indicate inferiority of nature.

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So the argument is this, okay? Here's what the Unitarians say. Here's what people who attack the deity of Christ say.

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They say, well, Jesus said the Father was the only true God. Hence, Jesus is not

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God and is an inferior creature. That's the argument. Yet, what was said was that to have eternal life, one must know both the one true

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God and Jesus Christ who was sent by the Father. The phrase only true

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God in reference to the Father does not mean that Jesus isn't God. How else would

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Jesus make mention of the truth of monotheism? How else would Jesus refer to the Father, right?

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Since He is not a separate God from the Father, He is a separate person sharing in the one being of God, how could

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Jesus' confession of the deity of the Father be taken as a denial of His own deity? Do you get that?

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How does Jesus' confession that the Father is the one true God be a denial that He is

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God? Jesus is not only of His divine nature anymore.

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He came to earth. He was born of a virgin. The Carmen Christi in Philippians chapter two says

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Jesus assumed the form of a slave, the nature of man in addition to His full divinity.

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He is then capital G -O -D hyphen capital M -A -N, the

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God -man. That's the hypostatic union. He's totally God and totally man all at once with no mixture of the two natures.

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They are separate and distinct, but all at once. It's miraculous. It's miraculous, of course.

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It's something that we can understand and comprehend fully. So again, how else would

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Jesus relate to and speak of the two other persons of the Trinity who did not enter into human existence?

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The Father and the Holy Spirit stayed as they were. They remained as they were.

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The question is, would Jesus deny that the Father is the one true God? Of course not.

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Dr. White says those who argue against the deity of Christ in this passage then have two options.

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Two options. Number one, either Jesus is a false God separate from the Father, or number two,

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Jesus would have to make some statement supporting polytheism like, Father, you and I are two, a couple of gods among many.

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But Jesus affirms monotheism. Of course he would. There's one God. He said the truth.

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There is only one true God. The Father is Him, the Son is Him, and the

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Spirit is Him. Jesus doesn't need to make those conditions in this statement. That's not what this prayer is about.

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And he can call the Father this anytime he wants. Contrary to what many say, he is not praying to himself.

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How many times do you hear that on the street? So you think Jesus is praying to himself if he is

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God? No, he's not. Of course he's not. There is distinction.

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He's praying to the Father because there are three holy persons in the

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Godhead. There's one God, three persons. You know, people say, how do you get that?

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Where do you get that from? The word trinity isn't in the Bible. I've told you this before. All at once, if you study this

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Bible from front to back, you will see two truths regarding the nature of God.

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Two truths that you can't repudiate, that you can't reject. Number one, there is one

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God. From front to back, there is one God. Then, all at the same time, the second truth about the nature of God in the

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Bible is that the Father is God, the Son is God, and the Holy Spirit is God. How those two truths mix, you and I don't get it all the time, do we?

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Analogies fall desperately short. But that's what revelation has given us.

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There is one God, and yet there are three persons. You are one person and one being.

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One personhood, one being, that's you and me. But God has shown himself in his word to have one being, three personhood.

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He's God. That's who he is. And Jesus can call the

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Father the one true God, contrary to what many think.

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And so when taking on the form of man, he took on this mode of communication as well. He became human in the fullest sense of what a human is, all the while maintaining full deity.

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Of course he prays as we pray on the earth. Of course Jesus prays. He's also totally human.

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Now how else would we learn how to pray except that Jesus would show us? Someone says the

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Trinity and the hypostatic union don't make sense. This nature of God stuff, guys, how do we get it?

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But we can't reject those two truths. The Bible suspends them up in midair and holds them as both true.

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We don't define truth even if our finite minds don't always get it from the human perspective.

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He defines truth. You see, take it all or nothing, but don't take some and mix it with your nothing.

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Take all or nothing. Now let's bring this back a bit from high theology to what we're reading.

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This has been the thing about eternal life. It's not only about life everlasting.

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It is to forever know God. This is eternal life to know the

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Father and to know the Son, to know Christ, to know

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God. That's part of the new covenant promise. Jeremiah 31, 34 said, they will not teach each other again, each man his neighbor and each man his brother saying, know the

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Lord, for they will all know me from the least of them to the greatest of them declares the

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Lord, for I will forgive their iniquity and their sin I will remember no more. They will know me. In this context in John 17, ginosko or the

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Greek word for know is not simply talking about knowing of God.

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Eternal life isn't simply knowing of God. It's knowing God. It's not knowing

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God even in a pantheistic sense. This knowing

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God, this knowing Christ, this knowing the Spirit is on a deep relational level.

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The one true God, He personalizes it. There's no one else.

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Eternal life is to know God. And you'll know Him and experience

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Him even beyond His word and faith. That's the promise. That's heaven. That's the amazing part about it.

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You and I know God and we know Christ to a degree. But we will know

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God, we will know Christ perfectly in eternal life. Paul says we know in part.

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We know in part. We know God, we know Christ to a degree. But in eternal life, that knowing will reach its perfection.

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Comprehensive and complete, we will be consumed in ecstatic joy in the knowledge of God.

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Paul says we will know fully just as we have been fully known by God. We will know fully.

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Just as you have been fully known. In a sense, this eternal life is to also see

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God's glory. It parallels with verse one. It is to see the splendor of God and be in that forever.

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You can't divorce the knowledge of God from the splendor and glory of God. You and I will get to see both, we'll experience both.

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And that glory is not only seen, but experienced and known. Therefore, it could be said that the opposite of eternal life is what?

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If eternal life is knowing God and knowing Christ, then the opposite of eternal life is not knowing

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God. It's being separated from God. It's being, enduring an absence of God.

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It's even enduring an absence of His glory and His common benevolence.

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That's what's hard and scary to imagine. There is a common grace and a common benevolence in this world.

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There is a creation that proclaims that there is a one true God, and yet people reject

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Him. But they get babies, they get marriages, they get to be healed, they get rain.

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It rains on the just and the unjust. They get provided for, they get jobs, they get wonderful things.

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But when they're absent from that, what will be left? That's scary to think about.

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Verse four, I glorified you on the earth, having accomplished the work which you have given me to do.

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When Jesus was hungry and thirsty as they came to that village in Samaria and the apostles then went to get supplies in the city,

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He stayed at the well, right? Jesus stayed at the well in Samaria and the apostles come back and they see

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Him ministering to the Samaritan woman and they thought, boy, He's got to be hungry and exhausted by now.

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And Jesus said to them, I'm fine. He said, my food is to do the will of Him who sent me in to accomplish all

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His work. That's always what has nourished and energized

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Jesus. His mission on the earth is almost over. It will climax at the cross.

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And at that point, He will say the word, to telestai, which in the

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English is, it is finished. And what's interesting is accomplished or completed right here in the text is not in the past tense in the original language.

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I glorified you on the earth, having accomplished the work which you have given me to do. This is actually in the perfect tense.

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Jesus is saying, I glorified you on the earth, accomplishing the work you have given me to do.

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And being in the perfect tense, there is no end reference to that accomplishment and work.

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It continues on and on and on. You could even say that Jesus is still working today.

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He's still mediating. He's still interceding. He's still saving people.

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He's still reigning. It continues, it continues on. And doing His work on the earth is what has glorified the

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Father. He has, you could say, displayed the majesty of His Father in the earth that many have praised and will praise

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God. And finally, for our last verse for today, such a powerful statement of Christ.

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Look at verse five. And now, Father, glorify me together with yourself, with the glory which

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I had with you before the world was. Do you see a contrast in the glories from verse four to five?

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There was a glory in which the God -man, Jesus the Christ, glorified

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His Father while on the earth. There was that glory. Think about Philippians chapter two. Once again, the

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Carmen Christi. He did not regard equality with God a thing to be held onto, but He emptied

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Himself. As one theologian says, the text doesn't say that He emptied

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Himself of something, but that He emptied Himself. That is,

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Jesus nullified Himself. The eternal Son of God nullified Himself.

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He made Himself of no reputation by taking on the form of what He called a slave, the form of a man, a human, assuming human nature.

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And so in this mission, in this humanity on the earth,

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He glorified God in a wonderful way. He glorified God in accomplishing the work that God had given

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Him. It was very visible to all creation. But now,

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Jesus, not just human, but also totally God, He desires to go back. He wants to return, to be restored to the glory and the splendor that He shared with the

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Father before the world was. This word was has the root in the

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Greek, a me, which is a sense of being. This was before the world came into being.

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This is the true pre -existence of which there was only the Father, Son, and Holy Spirit.

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The true pre -existence. And this isn't simply like Jesus was there for a brief time right before creation, and then

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He had a special glory with the Father. This is saying before the world was, so as to denote an eternity past.

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This is glory that He shared with the Father from eternity past. He's always had it.

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And He wants to return to that now. Before anything and anyone else was.

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Restore to me, Father, the glory we shared together in former eternity.

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The perfect communion of the Son and His Father. This is eternal bliss. Needing nothing outside of themselves.

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The one God. This is the special God -only glory, as I told you.

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They share it together. This is the kind of glory God shares with no one, and He doesn't break the rules for Jesus, because Jesus isn't an elevated man.

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He isn't a demigod. He is the one true God. This is the

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Trinity. The kind of glory

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God shares with no one, but it belonged and belongs to the Son of God. It belonged and belongs to the

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Son of God. Now, someone might say, what about Isaiah 43? You guys quote that all the time. Isaiah 43, before me there was no

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God formed, and there will be none after me. I, even I, am the Lord, and there is no Savior besides me, even from eternity

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I am. All of it's true. We don't deny any of it.

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The Son of God was never formed. He has always been. He is uncreated.

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He is called Theos in the New Testament. Yes, Jesus is called

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Lord and God in the New Testament. He receives worship. He attests to this

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Himself. He is not another God after God. He is

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God. He couldn't say any of this prayer if He wasn't

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God. Do you get that? He couldn't say this prayer like He's saying it if He wasn't also divine.

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This would be straight blasphemy. He would deserve to die.

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He would deserve to be stoned to death. People can somehow read this and go, look,

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He was just a man. How can you come away from this going He was just a man? He would deserve death.

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What does the death of a regular man on a cross do for anyone? Nothing.

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Nothing. He must be totally God and totally man for that atonement to be powerful and efficacious enough to pay for anyone's sin.

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He is God. He's not an additional Savior, but the Savior. And as like God says here, even from eternity,

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I am. What did Jesus call Himself? The I am. He said in John 8, before Abraham was,

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I am. He said in the beginning was the word in John 1 that that verb having no point of reference in the past,

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He, the Logos, is God. Here in John 17,

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He shared the God glory with the Father before creation began. I've said it and I'll say it again.

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The Bible says there's only one God, one being, but this word has revealed the

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Father, the Son, and the Spirit share in this one being. It's all true. And so these verses are really some of the most

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Trinitarian in the entire Bible. But with that said, Jesus wants the glory back in which

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He shared in eternity. However, it must be made clear. This is important, okay?

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When Jesus prays to the Father right here, to return to the glory that He had with the

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Father before the world was, this is in no way Jesus requesting that the

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Father reverse His incarnation. He's not asking for the Father to reverse

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His incarnation, that is, becoming man. When the word became flesh, the word being

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Jesus in John 1, He does not leave His body or His humanity in the grave. Do you get that?

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Jesus doesn't die on a cross as totally God and totally man, go into the earth and He rises only as deity and leaves

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His body behind. What happened? In the resurrection, Jesus rose again with a transformed, glorified body.

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Jesus was divine in eternity past. He assumed humanity along with it, totally

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God, totally man. Now after the resurrection, He remains that in a glorified state.

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Jesus will forever have humanity aspects to Him. That's why

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He's our high priest who lives forever to constantly make intercession for us.

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You see, the high priests who were after the lineage of Aaron would die after 80, 90 years.

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They would die and they would die and they would die and these priests in the Old Testament would continue to die and then new people would have to come, but Jesus never dies and He's human, so He represents you and me.

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He's divine and human and He can continue on to make intercession for you and me. That's what the book of Hebrews talks about.

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He will forever have these natures. And so this glorified, totally

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God and totally man, Jesus Christ will return to the Father, has returned to the

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Father, and thus He returns to the glory that He had with the

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Father before the world had being and He retains that glory. Not only that,

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He had glory before the world was and then He obtained glory as the God -man and now

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He takes that divine glory and that God -man glory and that glory compounds.

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It's glory beyond glory with Christ. It's total and full glory with Christ.

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It's incredible. To use a weak analogy, because anything that you use to make an analogy falls short with Christ, imagine this.

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Imagine it this way. Imagine a prince that went off to battle for his father, the king.

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Now, the prince, before he left, in his kingdom, he had a glory, kind of.

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He was the prince. He had a glory back at home, but now the prince becomes a soldier.

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He becomes a knight. He becomes just like any other man with a sword next to him.

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One that could die like any other man. One that was willing to be at the front lines of the battlefield.

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And the prince goes to the battlefield. He wins every single battle. He conquers every principality and every power that sought to overthrow the king.

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So then the prince returns home. Then with what? The same glory before?

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No, with exponential glory. Christ returns to his father with exponential glory.

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So now with Christ, the glory he had plus the glory he incurred gives way to a name that is above every single name.

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So that at the name of Jesus, every knee will bow and every tongue will confess

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Jesus Christ as Lord. Compounded glory.

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Let's wrap this up. You know, I was taught in seminary, in my graduate training, that you should always have application in your sermons.

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I was always told the phrase, Wade, you've got to take what was on the dusty roads of Judea and bring it to the people in Utah, wherever you're at.

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You've got to take it from there to here. You always want to find ways to apply the text.

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And now in my application of this sermon, of these first five verses of this magnificent prayer,

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I could tell you things like, well, look, Jesus prayed at a crucial time in his life, so pray also.

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I could tell you that. I could tell you that Jesus glorifies the Father, so seek the biblical way to do the same.

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Glorify the Father, you guys. I could tell you eternal life is to know the Father and the

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Son, and so if that's what heaven is like, do that now.

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Get to know God in His Word and in prayer, and don't neglect Him. I could tell you that.

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If you don't want to know God now, why would you want to know Him in heaven? I could tell you that you see

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Christ accomplished His work that the Father had given Him, so do the same. Accomplish your work that the

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Father has given you and do it to the fullest. But those things don't really go with the context of this first portion of the high priestly prayer.

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You know, and I as a teacher of the Bible, I as a preacher, don't want to use the text of Scripture as a diving board where we get to look at it and then we jump off into something else.

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I want to give you something that relates to the text at hand. How can we apply this?

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I told you this first part of the prayer is about Christ Himself. Then it's about His disciples.

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Then the third sermon will be about His disciples who have yet to be born or believe.

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These five verses are then all about the Son of God. We've seen that today.

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These are all about the Son of God, and He, we have seen, is zealous for His own glory.

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Glorify Me, He says it many times. Glorify Me, Father, and I'll glorify You. Return Me to the glory.

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Jesus is out for His own glory right here. And that's the Son's right.

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That's the Son's privilege. Do you know that some people have said

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Jesus is selfish here? I'm not even kidding. Some have said that Jesus is selfish here, even though He'll pray for His disciples,

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He'll pray for future disciples. They'll say, look at this, Jesus is selfish. On the eve of the most selfless act that the world will ever see at that.

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The Thursday before the Good Friday where He gives His life, they'll say this is selfish.

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That's a baseless accusation. And it negates the fact that only God can sinlessly be for His own praise and magnification.

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Really, if the Son wasn't fully God, this would be blasphemy. I've said it before.

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It makes complete sense in light of who He truly is. You know,

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I wonder if the ground pulsated when He prayed this. I wonder if a light shone around Him when

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He prayed this to the Father. I wonder if a brilliant glory beamed down from heaven as He prayed this.

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I wonder what it was like to be in Jesus' presence when He prayed this prayer. Glorify Me so that I may glorify

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You, Father. Return to Me to the glory that I had with You, that I shared with You before the world was.

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It must have been incredible. Think about it.

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Even glorifying Himself would not be the end of it. You can't call this selfish.

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Because glorifying Him would result in Him glorifying the Father. Is that selfish? Not at all.

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He said that in verse one. Father, the hour has come. Glorify Your Son that the

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Son may glorify You. Even His glory isn't selfish. Even the glory of Jesus isn't selfish.

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And that is what has brought us to this point in redemption history and also the history of the world. The application here then for this sermon is to praise

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God because He sought His own glory. That's what I'll tell you. God has received immense glory in revealing that He is a

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Trinity. You see, God was content in eternity past. There was perfect communion, love, co -equality, mutual glory, and power between the

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Father, the Son, and the Spirit. But because God sought to show His glory to a creation, we get to experience all these wonderful gifts from God.

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He didn't need us. He didn't need all this. But because He was after His own glory, we get to enjoy it.

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Because God sought to show the glory of His justice, we see the terrible result of the fall.

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However, because God has sought to show the glory of His grace and love, we then get

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Christ. We get to have eternal life. We get to know

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God. And I imagine that He will receive continued glory for the rest of eternity.

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The question we have to answer is, has Jesus' prayer, will

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Jesus' prayer come true? It has. It absolutely has.

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He has received all glory. So we will praise Him. We'll praise

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Him. Let's pray, church. Father in heaven, thank you for your word today.