Brother David · John 17 · November 25, 2025

Transcript:
Then turn with me to John chapter 17. John chapter 17. Turn this on. All right, thank you Isaiah. I should be on here. We're going to be going through this chapter and take some time to look at first a very high level overview and then we're going to dig into a couple thoughts of what the main point of this chapter is and then also how can we can apply this to our relationship with the Lord. This is Jesus praying for you. So, John 17 set the context here. This is during the time right before he died that he was praying for his disciples and his disciples who were yet to come which includes you and me and the ones that have not yet come to Christ. The ones who he is seeking are far off. John chapter 17 Jesus prays, these words spake Jesus and lifted up his eyes to heaven and saying, Father, the hour has come. Glorify thy son that thy son also may glorify thee. What I'm going to do just so you know is I'm going to go through several verses and we're going to stop and we're going to talk about and see how this applies and once we get to the end of going through this chapter on an overview we'll get more into some of the lessons we can learn. We're going to go through verse three here. As thou has given him power over all flesh, that he should give eternal life to as many as thou has given him. And this is life eternal, that they may know thee, the only true God and Jesus Christ who I am sent, whom thou hast sent. So it's important when we set the context here Jesus Christ is, John is a portrait view of Jesus Christ. It's not so much focused on his doings though it does talk a lot about that. It focuses on the person of Jesus Christ and it is here that we see eternal life is a person. It is not a process, it is not a procedure, it is not a series of steps that you have gone through, it is not a checkbox that we make. Eternal life, if you will have eternal life you will have Christ and all of him and nothing else because eternal life is not something where we work out something, it is something that Jesus Christ worked out for us. In verse one we see God is worthy of all glory and honor. Jesus through his life glorified God and God's power, grace, and justice was glorified through Jesus. Eternal life we see in verse three and this is life and this is life eternal. That's equivalent. Eternal life is not based on your performance, it is based on the work and person of Jesus Christ and your participation in this is based on your location not the series of steps you take and are you in Christ. See God sent Jesus Christ and we must be clear on who Jesus is in order to be in him. Verse four says, I have glorified thee on the earth. This is Jesus speaking of his father. I have finished the work which thou gavest me to do. And one of the things I love about this in verse four is he says he's finished the work. Jesus hasn't died yet and that's because God is not in our time, he's not confined to our dimensions as we would say in physics. God is outside of time, he's outside of dimensions so when Jesus Christ speaks of realities for us that we are dead and risen with Christ and we are seated in the heavenlies that's already happened in his mind because he's there at the beginning and the end. Time is not linear moving in one direction so Jesus Christ can speak of things that have already happened or have not yet happened as if they were there. And that is very encouraging when we realize that Christian life is not about trying to work things out so much as it is resting in something that Jesus Christ already worked out. See God is outside of time but we are confined to time and before we get all metaphysical here it's just important to realize that we can claim those realities even if we have not yet experienced them because remember our Christian life, our experience, our eternal life, it's not based on something we work out, it's based on something we lay hold upon by faith that he did for us. How simple, how glorious it is. Jesus finished this work, he glorified God and everything that was necessary to please God Jesus accomplished. Consider this, Jesus was successful in this mission that he finished. Our eternal life and our life here on earth hinges on this, not what we do. If Jesus had not succeeded we would have no hope. We have hope because he did succeed, he did glorify the father, Jesus did please God on my behalf, he did pay for our sins and we are in him. And now God views us the way he views his beloved son because of what Christ did. Moving on to verse five, and now oh father glorify thou me with thine own self with the glory which I had with thee before the world was. I have manifested thy name unto the men which thou gavest me out of the world. Thine they were and thou gavest them me and they have kept thy word. You see God gets glory when we are with him, when we are his family. It's interesting God wanted a family, he wanted friends and neighbors and that's why he came to earth to die for us. Note that Jesus repeatedly references his deity, he didn't hide who he was to the people who believed him and wanted him, that would be his disciples. But he was quite coy it seems and it seems confusing about people who did not want him. Christ is found of those who want him and he is very obvious to those who seek him, to those who he is drawing to be clear, it also speaks of that. But God is not looking to impress anyone and we see that in parables that he tells, if they will not believe Moses and the prophets neither will they believe me. But it is not as if God has left us without a witness because he is seeking and he is going after that lost sheep we see in the parables earlier in the gospels. He is coming unto us but he will be found of those who diligently seek him. He that cometh God must believe that he is and that he's a rewarder of them that diligently seek him. God has used Jesus to bring people unto himself. We know all things that God wants us to know through Jesus Christ. Being in Christ we keep his word and in verse 7 we understand the riches and all things, the riches of all things that we have being in Christ. In Christ we have all things and that is in 2nd Peter 1 we see that, to them that have obtained like precious faith with us through the righteousness of God and our Savior Jesus Christ grace and peace be multiplied according as his divine power hath given unto us all things that pertain unto life and godliness. So here we see the sufficiency of Christ that all things that we need for doubts, for fears, we'll talk about that later, are found in Christ. That is a very radical idea and a very radical promise and one that we have to lay hold upon again by faith because there are many many times that I do not feel perfect and complete in him as the word of God describes us and that's where we choose to believe what God has said about our lives instead of looking and leaning onto our own understanding because God is outside of time and perhaps he has given us all things in a way that we have not yet, not perhaps but for sure he has given us all things in a way that we might not fully realize. Verse 8 says, for I have given unto them the words which thou gavest me and they have received them and have known surely that I came out from thee and that they have believed that thou didst send me. You see the people who are in Christ we're now learning more about what they are. Their location is in Christ. They have received the words of Christ and have believed Jesus. We are confronted with the word of God. We don't believe it to make it as true. We don't have to go through a series of steps again in order to, you know, I was actually listening to some Christian songs on Spotify whatever and then there is this song that came on and it started was calling Liking the Scriptures, Liking the Scriptures Unto Me and the first verse started talking about Noah and then I was like...