John 17:1-5: A Prayer For The Glory Of Christ

I didn't write this down, but there are certain passages that are just deep and rich and good that call us up, that push us down. I was thinking about this as we were singing. We stand here on solid ground and yet our bodies, if we were to dive deeply into water about 10 feet, 12 feet in, the weight of the water begins crushing us.

And as we climb up to the top of mountains, the breath leaves us. We are so small in comparison to the things around us. And I felt that way this week when it comes to this text. We're beginning today, John 17, the high priestly prayer of Jesus, the great prayer of Jesus.

Jesus’ Prayer Life and the Uniqueness of John 17

And just as a way of introduction, we don't know exactly how frequently Jesus prayed. The Bible doesn't tell us how frequently he prayed, but he lived a prayer saturated life. We know that. We see from the scriptures that he went away to pray intentionally at times.

He left the disciples, he left the ministry, he left good work in order to pray. He prayed at his baptism and then the heavens opened. What a dramatic spectacle that must have been. He prayed, it said he prayed all night long before choosing his disciples.

One of the great decisions that he would make in his early ministry, he prayed all night. He blanketed that decision in prayer. He prayed at his transfiguration, right before he revealed who he is in fullness, or at least, and he pulled back the veil of eternity to show his disciples he prayed before that.

Luke 5 .16 says he slipped away to pray. Matthew 14 says that he prayed in solitude. Mark 1 .35 said he went to secluded places to pray. Matthew 19 said he prayed over the little children. Luke 22 tells us that he prayed for Peter before Peter went through his great temptation.

Matthew 22, he prayed at the Lord's Supper and he prayed before the meal and he blessed it. He prayed before the feeding of the 5 ,000 and he asked God to move and to work. He prayed, he taught people to pray for their enemies.

He taught them not to pray like the hypocrites who babble on and on in their prayers. He taught them in the exorcism of demons to pray. He taught them by his power that they should pray. He taught them a method to pray.

He taught them parables about prayer. He taught them how to understand what prayer is. Luke 18, his whole life was saturated with this discipline of prayer. At the end of his life, at the Garden of Gethsemane, which is what we'll look at a little bit today, he was praying on the cross, he was praying.

From the beginning of his life to the end of his life, his life was saturated with prayer. Now what's fascinating to me is that of all of that, we know that that's just a snapshot of the prayer life of Christ.

But we really don't have any transcripts from the prayer life of Christ, except one. Out of all of the prayers that Jesus prayed, we don't have the transcript or the written record of it, except John 17.

It's the only prayer that we know what Jesus prayed. Now you may be saying, well, what about the Lord's Prayer? That wasn't the Lord's Prayer, that the title can be confusing. The Lord's Prayer is for the disciples.

The Lord's Prayer is the prayer he taught us to pray. John 17 is his prayer, which means that it is on a level and a class of scripture that is entirely unique in the entire Bible. It's a lot of entirely's there.

Now, as we remember the setting of all of this is that we're in a section of John where Jesus was in the upper room and as a great high priest, he washed his disciples like the high priest of old and cleansed them.

And then he took his disciples and he led them through the city of Jerusalem through the dark of night as Judas was going to the city and as he was going to do his worst and his betrayal, Jesus was leading his people through the city, through the canvas of night, quietly, out the gate called Beautiful, down into the Kidron Valley, up the Mount of Olives, en route to this place called the Garden of Gethsemane.

And this is what we've been calling the travel discourse because in the dark of night, Jesus was teaching his disciples the last things that he would be teaching them before his death. In John 17, it is not told to us in John 17, but they arrive at the garden.

And at the garden, Jesus begins to pray. But in order for us to understand the context of all of this we have to borrow from the Synoptic Gospels because John doesn't give us the context. In John, they're walking, Jesus is talking and then Jesus stops and prays.

John leaves out some of the context. If you want a $2 word, John is being proleptic. He's looking at a future event and pulling it into the present because he has a theological purpose. Now, what is John's theological purpose?

Why would John not want to tell us the when and the how and the why and the what and how we got to the garden and why Jesus started praying and all of the things that happened that we know that happened in the Synoptic Gospels?

What would John's purpose be? Why would he periscope this point? Because he's trying to show us that Jesus is the true high priest of God. He's the true and better high priest. He's the one who will make atonement for our sin.

And we know this is true because John's gospel is structured this way. If you remember, there's a sermon that we preached a while ago. I don't know exactly which one it is. I think it's in John 11. John 11 near the end.

We talked about the structure of the book of John. John 1 through 11 is the story of Jesus as the true prophet. And what you'll notice in John 1 through 11 is that Jesus really is the true and greater Elisha.

All of the miracles that you read in the book of Kings that Elisha does, Jesus does them but greater. Now, not exactly the same, but in so many ways, Jesus is following in the chronological order of Elisha showing that he is the true prophet who will lead his people back to the land.

The same miracles that Elisha does, Jesus does, but greater, he is the true and final prophet. The second section of John is John chapter 12, where he rides into the city as true king. So he's true prophet, John 1 through 11, and he's true king right in the center of the book, in the exact center of the book, which I don't think is accidental.

He's the king, the Davidic one. John 13 through John 18 is the story of Jesus as true high priest. He's the one who washes his people like the high priest did in the upper room. He's the one who teaches them the new Torah, the new law in John 14, 15, and 16.

If you remember, he says, a new commandment I give you. He's giving them new law. He's teaching them new law not as a prophet, prophets don't give new law, they remind you of old law. He's giving you new law as the true Melchizedekian high priest.

And then in John 17, he sits down, kneels down to pray his great high priestly prayer. John is trying to show us the point of his gospel is that Jesus is the true prophet, priest, and king. And he is the priest who will offer not a lamb or a bull or a goat, but he's the true priest who will offer himself as the sacrifice, which is John 18 and 19.

So this whole section is climaxing and ending upon the point that Jesus is the interceding priest. He's the one who, like the high priest, goes into the holy of holies for us. And if you remember that the holy of holies is where the presence of God is most fully manifested, is it surprising that in this great prayer, he is praying about the glory of the Father, the Spirit, and the Son?

You have functionally in this prayer a new holy of holies that has broken out on earth with Jesus as the true high priest entering the presence of God for us. John is focused on Christology, which is the study of Christ.

John is focused on typology, Jesus is the true high priest, the true Elisha, the true holy of holies. John's focused on that. The synoptics, though, fill in the details of what happened that night. And I share them just so that we can tell the story fully.

They arrived in Gethsemane before Jesus started praying. Mark 14 .32 says, they came to a place named Gethsemane, and he said to his disciples, sit here until I have prayed. In a way, he's telling them like the high priest would tell the priest of old, stay here until I come back from the holy of holies.

That's sort of what he's doing. And the disciples are supposed to keep watch, like the priest were to keep watch for the high priest. They're to keep watch until he comes back. And then he goes a little bit deeper and he takes three of them, James, John, and Peter.

This is Matthew 26 .37 -38. It says, and he took with him Peter and the two sons of Zebedee, and he began to be grieved and distressed. Those two words are strong words there in the gospel. Then he said to them, my soul is deeply grieved to the point of death, remain here and keep watch for me.

So he's establishing a second guard with his three disciples who were the leaders of the disciples. And he cautioned them not to fall asleep and to avoid temptation as Jesus was serving them as their true high priest.

Luke 22 .40 -41 says, he said to them, pray that you may not enter temptation. And he withdrew from them about a stone's throw and he knelt down and began to pray. Matthew tells us that he collapsed under the weight of the distress that was on him in Matthew 26 .39.

It says, and he went a little beyond them and he fell on his face and he prayed. Mark 14 tells us the plea that he cried out to God and the way that he submitted to the sovereignty of God. It says, and he went a little beyond them and he fell to the ground and began to pray that if it were possible, that hour might pass from him.

And he was saying, Abba, Father, all things are possible for you, remove this cup from me. Yet not what I will, but what you will be done. Jesus is in great agony and distress. In his sovereignty as God, he is submitting perfectly to the will of God, but in his humanity, this moment is crushing him.

So much so that Luke 22 .44 tells us that he was crying tears of blood. And being in agony, he was praying very fervently and his sweat became like drops of blood falling upon the ground. Luke also tells us, you know, it's funny, you read a passage of scripture and you probably read it a hundred times and you just don't remember it.

You see it like you see it for the first time. And you're like, oh, that's interesting. Luke tells us that while Jesus was in the garden, an angel comes and ministers to him, just like the angels came and ministered to Elijah in the Old Testament.

Now an angel from heaven appeared to him, strengthening him. I had forgotten that that was in the text. What a beautiful thing. After praying, he came out and he found them sleeping. And he rebuked them and he said, wake up, stand guard.

And he goes back and he does it again. Comes back a second time and he finds them sleeping and he rebukes them. He tells them to stand guard. And he goes a third time and he comes back and they're sleeping again.

And that's what takes us to the arrest. Jesus as high priest, serving us, his people, alone and by himself. That's the context of John 17. That's how we get to the garden where Jesus prays this great high priestly prayer.

This is the only prayer, as I've said, of Jesus that we have recorded in scripture. It is special and it is consequential. As I read this this week, I thought, none of us, not especially not I, am worthy to talk about this prayer.

And yet God wrote it in plain language. It's not written in complex theological jargon. It's written in very plain terms so that even a child can understand it. And dip their toes into it. And yet the greatest scholars on earth can go down and be drowned in it.

Its meaning transcends comprehension. John Owen said that this prayer, John Owen's a great Puritan theologian, he said, this prayer presents us with the ineffable mystery of the divine fellowship within the triune Godhead.

Typical John Owen, taking something that's written in plain language and writing it in very convoluted, ineffable language. But he's right that this prayer shows us the mystery of the whole triune Godhead.

And as we enter as spectators into the holy of holies, watching Jesus, our true high priest, serve us, minister to us, and serve us before the presence of his Father and in the power of the Holy Spirit, I pray that we would see the truths of this prayer.

We would come under them. We would be captivated by them. And if you're looking for a practical sermon on five ways to change your life, this is not it. If you're looking for some to-do list that you can go and execute, this is most definitely not it.

Today, all we're going to do is behold the glory of Christ. We're gonna be called up into the heavens to see his beauty and to treasure him. And the application is just that, treasure him. Love him and glorify him.

John MacArthur says this about this prayer. Well, hello. Go sit with mama. That will be on the recording. John MacArthur didn't say that. John MacArthur said, the most elevated, the most glory-filled chapter in the Bible, it is the prayer above all prayers, the chapter above all chapters, because it alone is where we see the eternal communion between the son of God and his father.

It pulls back the veil into the secret place of the most high, and here we need to remove our shoes to stop and to listen, for in this chapter, we stand upon the holiest of ground. What a beautiful introduction to that prayer.

And that's why we took so long to introduce it, and we didn't get to the text that quickly, because this is such a special chapter, and it will take us a while to go through it. I don't know how many weeks.

I probably will say eight, and then it'll be 16. I have no idea, but we're gonna go through it together. Today, we're gonna look at just the first five verses, and we're gonna look at it from the lens of the son.

The Son’s Eternal Glory and His Glory in the Cross

The son has glory. This is a prayer to the glory of the son. He has glory in eternity. He has glory in his dominion. He has glory in his death, and he has glory in the salvation that he has accomplished for us.

So if you will, turn with me to John 17, one through five, as we look at this prayer through the lens of the son's glory. John 17, one through five. Jesus spoke these things, and lifting up his eyes to heaven, he said, Father, the hour has come.

Glorify your son, that the son may glorify you. Even as you gave him authority over all flesh, that to all whom you have given him, he may give eternal life. And this is eternal life, that they may know you, the only true God, and Jesus Christ, whom you have sent.

I have glorified 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 I had with you before the world was.

Let's pray. Lord, I pray that as we are spectators in this triune moment in the interaction between you and your Father in the Spirit, that we would watch, that we would look, that we would have eyes that are open to see the glory of Jesus Christ.

Lord, I pray that we would understand what that means. Lord, I pray that we would not look at this as something that is beyond us, that we could never see, never comprehend, and never have any application in our life.

Lord, this is the application of our life, that you are glorious, that you have ransomed us and saved us, and because you are infinitely glorious, we can trust that you will accomplish what you have said you're going to accomplish.

Lord, help us in this passage to see and behold your beauty, and Lord, help us to be a people who worship you in all things. In Christ's name we pray, amen. Now, glory shows up five times in these first five verses.

Says the Father is gonna glorify the Son, the Son is gonna glorify the Father, the Father is going to glorify the Son again, and then the Son has had eternal glory with His Father. There's two verses that talk about one of those.

So there's five times, five occasions where the word doxa, or the word in Hebrew kavod, shows up in this passage. In a lot of ways this is a glory fest. There's glory everywhere. It's dripping and spilling out of the pages in every pen stroke in this passage, where the Father glorifies the Son, the Son glorifies the Father, and the Son remembers the glory that He had for all of eternity.

Now, glory is a funny word that we need to define because I don't think we understand the depth of what it means as English speakers. Glory in the Hebrew is the word kavod. I said it like that because it's fun to say, kavod.

Now, that word means heaviness or weightiness, and in context it means significance. When someone has a weighty personality or a weighty significance about them, they have glory. All of us being made in God's image have a measure of His glory because we're made to image Him, we're made to be like Him, but there are people on earth who have more of it, and we know it when it happens.

For instance, why is it that every time we're driving and a cop passes us, our heart sinks and our body is physically affected by them? The guy driving the green Honda Civic didn't affect me. The guy driving the Toyota Tundra didn't affect me, but when I saw the cop, I was like, oh my gosh, what am I doing?

It's because they have a weightiness and a significance to their office that causes us to be physically affected by the glory of it. Mayors, judges, presidents, and kings have the same thing. In our society, we put that sort of weightiness and significance upon different kinds of people.

Like for instance, I, this may sound radical to you, but I don't really care if I meet the president or not. I'm not really that interested in that. That's not my thing. Maybe if we had a good president.

I shouldn't have done that.

Apologize for that. But if Mike Krzyzewski, the Hall of Fame basketball coach for the Duke Blue Devils was near me, I'd look like a little girl. I'd be like, that's Mike! I literally stood outside of, what's the big arena in New York City?

Madison Square Garden, right? I stood outside, I don't even remember the garden, I just remember I saw Mike. Stood outside of Madison Square Garden, watched him pass me and I was like, I was like, I was two feet away from him.

And it affected me physically. That's silly if you think about it. That this basketball coach meant that much to me. See, and Derek's shaking his head.

That is silly.

In human terms, we as people can ascribe value to different people and it's not always the same who I value and who you value might be a little different, but the result is still the same. When you're in the presence of someone that you greatly value, you have a physical reaction to the weightiness and the significance of that?

God is not like that. You can't ascribe glory to God. You can't add glory to God and you can't reduce glory from God. He is infinitely glorious, which is why every time that people are in his presence, they are physically assaulted by the weightiness of his glory.

You remember in Exodus, when they walk up to the mountain and the glory cloud of God descends upon the mountain and he speaks and the people hit the deck.

And they're like, ah!

And they say, Moses, you go speak to God, which really shows how little they cared for Moses. Moses, you go get assaulted. We're gonna stand back. The weightiness, the heaviness, the significance of God's glory pressed down on them and was crushing them and if Christ Jesus himself did not carve out a space in his own blood for you and I to stand in the glory of God, we too would be crushed.

When Jude ends his book by saying that he will make us stand in the presence of God, he is saying something incredible. That you and I, unlike the Israelites, will not be crushed by the glory of God because Christ Jesus himself has safeguarded us and protected us.

His glory is heavy. And this prayer is not just talking about the glory of the Father, it talks about the glory of the Son. The Son has matchless, maximal glory. It begins like this, or it doesn't begin like this.

Verse five says this. Father, glorify me together with yourself with the glory which I had before the world was. Jesus is not saying, as some would say, that Christ was obedient and then God glorified him and then God responded to him and gave him these.

Jesus is saying I had perfect, infinite glory with the Father for all eternity, before the world was made, before atoms and electrons were bouncing around all over the place, he had perfect glory, endless epics of never-ending eternity with the Father in glory.

He says before the world was. He's acknowledging here that he, the Son, has equal glory with the Father and that for all eternity they have shared in this matchless glory for all ages, even before the world was made.

Now this is one of the clearest descriptions of what Jesus says about himself. I love it so much when people say that Jesus never claimed to be God. What a foolish thing to say. If you say, Father, bring me back into the glory that I had with you before the world was,.

You're saying you're God.

You're either, like C .S. Lewis, a liar, a lunatic on the level of a poached egg,.

Or you're a lord.

That's the only options if you say that statement. Jesus' self-awareness of who he was is that he is eternal God. He viewed himself as preexistent God, equal with the Father for all of eternity, who has glory.

He is not, as we affectionately refer around these parts, the European hair model with his hair blowing in the wind who begs us and pleads with us to follow him if we have time or if we get around to it.

He's not a weak, impotent savior. He is God with all glory, majesty, honor, and power, and worthy of all our respect. Verse one and two says, glorify your son that the son may glorify you even as you gave him authority over all flesh.

Christ’s Authority Over All Flesh and Glory in the Cross

The second thing that we're gonna look at is that he doesn't just have glory for all of eternity, but he gains glory when he enters into time and space, which is a fascinating thing if you think about it, because how can you add to something that's infinite?

It breaks the brain to even think about it. He has infinite glory, and yet he's gaining glory by entering into time and space. And what I love about this passage is, is that it says something truly radical for what most people, I think, in the evangelical world would even view and say, because we tend to think that God's people belongs to Jesus and that the world, they belong to Satan.

Do you see what it says? It says glorify your son even as you gave him authority over all flesh. Every human being on earth is under the rule, power, and authority of Christ. This world belongs to him.

That means that every atheist belongs to him in some way, and he will do with them as he pleases. That means that everything that you experience in this world is under the banner and authority of his lordship and his authority.

You do not, this is what we talked about last week, you do not live in Satan's world. You do not live in a world that is equal and opposite powers, sort of like a yin-yang where God and the devil are sort of fighting it out.

No, you live in the world that belongs to Jesus Christ. He is king, he is God, he is on his throne. Every rebel microbe will bow. Every prickly atheist will eventually confess. Every stubborn weed will be pulled out.

Every sea beast and sea creature will bow down. Everything belongs to him. And we can have confidence in that because he said it. That's not me saying it. Your lord said that. All flesh belongs to him.

And this rubs against us because we like to be autonomous and we like to have control. Even as Christians, we like to say, I don't belong to anybody but myself.

No, no, no, you belong to Christ.

Your life is not your own. You've been bought with a price. You've been hidden in him. He has authority over your life. You don't even have the authority to make decisions for yourself. You belong to him.

This is comforting if you can accept it. Every sin that happens on this earth happens on his home turf. Every murder that happens happens in his backyard. Every abuse that happens. People ask, why does evil happen in the world?

And that's a fair question. Why are abortions running rampant? Why are people so confused and so broken? If you remember the fact that you can't possibly hate these things more than Christ does and they've happened in his backyard, then you will have confidence that he and his good timing will deal with it.

He is not blind to it. He is not aloof to it. He has not turned his face away from it and said, I can't deal with it like you and I when we're trying to clean our living room. He's seen the mess and he will fix it.

And he will deal with it.

That's the second thing. He is petitioning God to give him the glory that has been his for all of eternity and the glory that is involved with him owning, subduing, and ruling over all flesh.

The third thing.

It says that the son will have glory in his death. It says, father, the hour has come. Glorify your son. This is the third time Jesus has said glorify me. Glorify me like you did in eternity. Glorify me in the way that I'm gonna rule over all flesh and glorify me because the hour has come.

You and I as budding Johannine scholars, because we've been in this book now for 119 messages, I only know that because I looked. The word hour in John means the hour of his death. We've talked about this several times when he says my hour has not yet come.

My hour has come. He's talking about his death. He is saying that God is going to glorify him through his death and that is a shocking thing to say. Yeah. Because he's saying God glorify me in the horror of Roman crucifixion.

He's saying glorify me in the violence and the brutality and the death that I'm going to undergo. He is saying glorify me in a way that is utterly strange to us. In that time period, there's no glory in crucifixion.

You would have had to have been in a enemy of the state in order to experience the capital punishment that was crucifixion. He is saying that when I am stripped naked and my skin ripped off from the lashings and my body left as a mound of mutilated flesh,.

Glorify that.

Usually at that period of time, crucifixions were perpetrated to glorify Rome to show you that they have weight, they have significance. Don't mess with us because this is what we will do to you. Crucifixions were a billboard for your obedience.

Every time you had a moment of thought that, gosh, I really wish that I could be free of Rome and you see that hanging body, hanging at the top of the highest point of the city, you would remember, be quiet.

Don't say anything.

That's what'll happen if you do. And yet God is saying, Christ is saying that there is no glory for Rome. This moment's for my glory. Jesus is asking God in the brutality of that to glorify this where men like rabid animals would kill him, crucify him, who they would grab hold of the creator who's in charge of all flesh and they would mutilate his flesh.

And you ask yourself, how is that glorious? If you and I were there, I don't even know if we could stomach it. We watch movies about these things and I don't think that they're anything even close to what happened in the actual crucifixion.

If you want to read a book, that will turn your stomach, but I think it's probably really good. It's Fleming Rutledge's book on the crucifixion. Her description of the events is awful and brutal, but I think it's true.

So how can that be glorious? How can that be good? When you realize that through the cross, through the ugliest moment in human history, not just because it was a crucifixion, that happened many times, but it only happened once that an innocent man was crucified.

It only happened once that a man who had never sinned was crushed in that way. And the darkness and the ugliness of that came the greatest thing that has ever happened in each and every one of us in this room who are in Christ or beneficiaries of it.

Atonement for our sins came through the ugliness of the cross. Reconciliation for God's people came through the depravity of the cross. The death of death came in the death of Christ on his cross. The defeat of Satan, the public defeat of the enemy came in the tragedy of the cross.

Fulfilled prophecy like Isaiah 53 and Psalm 22 came in the ugliness and brutality of the cross. Salvation to the people of God came in the darkness and heaviness and weightiness of this tragedy called the cross.

Eternal life to the saints of God, justification for his believers, adoption as sons and daughters, sanctification which unites us to him, forgiveness of sins, exaltation. You and I are not paupers in the kingdom.

We're not orphans in the kingdom. We've been made princes and princesses. We've been made a kingdom, a priest and a holy nation because of the cross. And we've been guaranteed future glory because of the cross.

What else could match that?

This moment where the greatest tragedy in human history ever happened has accomplished the greatest good. There's nothing weightier, heavier, more significant than that. That's why Jesus calls it his moment of greatest glory.

John 12, he says, when I am lifted up, I will be glorified. John 17, glorify me because this is my hour. Hebrews 2 .9, this is what he says. But we do see him who was made for a little while lower than the angels, namely Jesus.

Because of the suffering of death, crowned with glory and honor. So that by the grace of God, he might taste death for everyone. Brothers and sisters, if you are here and you know Christ, you do not have to taste the sting of death ultimately because he drank it for you.

He tasted it for you. He has won maximal glory in eternity, in his dominion, and his election of you. Pouring out his favor and blessings on you because he was treated in the way that he was treated. He drank the curse of God's cup so that you could have God's blessings.

And that's where we'll end today. That there's great glory that Jesus has won in our salvation. He says, glorify your son so that the son may glorify you. That to all whom you have given him, he may give eternal life.

The scriptures do not say that Christ potentially won salvation for everyone. The scriptures say that God has actually won it for his people. That's a tough pill to swallow, but I want you to hear it.

All whom you, the father, have given him, the son, he will give eternal life. There is no question in Jesus's mind on who is going to be his. You and I don't understand these things. They're too big for us.

But the scriptures teach that he has dominion over all flesh and that God, by his grace, has extended salvation to worthless, pitiful sinners like us, not for our glory, but for the glory of Christ. Your salvation is not for your benefit, ultimately.

You get great benefits by being saved. You get the fruits of the spirit. You get love and joy, you get all this stuff. The Bible talks about it, but they're not for you, ultimately. Underneath all of that, and this is a theme throughout the entire Bible, underneath all of it is the glory of Christ.

Think about a passage, for instance, we know quite well, Psalm 23. The Lord is my shepherd, which means he's into me. He loves me. He makes me lie down in green pastures. He really thinks a lot of me.

He didn't take me to the brown pastures,.