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John 17:1-5
Jesus Prays For Himself
January 12, 2014
First Baptist Church
Jackson, Mississippi
USA
January Memory Verse
Lamentations 3:22-23 NKJV 22 Through the Lord’s mercies we are not consumed,
Because His compassions fail not. 23 They are new every morning.
Great is Your faithfulness.
Lamentations 3:22-23 NKJV
What is the number one thing?
The glory of God!
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Memory Verse for 2014
1 Corinthians 10:31 NKJV 31 Therefore, whether you eat or drink, or whatever you do, do all to the glory of
God.
1 Corinthians 10:31 NKJV
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William Barclay's Daily Study Bible (NT)
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J. Vernon McGee's Thru The Bible
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We now come to one of the most remarkable chapters in the Bible.
It is the longest prayer in the Bible, although it would take you less than
four minutes to read it.
That is a good indication of the length that public prayers should be.
If you can't say all you've got to say in three or four minutes, then you've
got way too much to say.
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Brief public prayers, thought out and right to the point, are much more
effective than those long, rambling ones we hear.
No wonder many prayer meetings are so dead!
According to Romans 8:34, Jesus is praying for you this very moment!
Romans 8:34b NKJV 34b It is Christ Who died, and furthermore is also risen, Who is even at the right
hand of God, Who also makes intercession for us.
Romans 8:34b NKJV
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Isaiah 49:16a NKJV 16a I have inscribed you on the palms of My hands;
Isaiah 49:16a NKJV
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Would you like to know exactly what Jesus is praying for you right now?
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The answer is found in John 17.
John 17 Farewell Discourse Wikipedia
In John, chapters 14-17, Jesus is saying farewell to His eleven remaining
disciples.
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The Farewell Discourse was given by Jesus immediately after the Last Supper in
the Upper Room in Jerusalem, the night before His crucifixion.
Jesus tells the disciples that He will be going away to the Father and that He will
send the Holy Spirit to guide them.
The Prince of Peace bestows peace on the disciples and commands them to
love one another.
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The unity of love is a key theme in the discourse, manifested by several
reiterations of the New Commandment: "love one another as I have loved you".
Jesus showed them how He loved them by laying down His life for them.
John 15:13 NKJV
13 Greater love has no one than this, than to lay down one’s life for his friends.
John 15:13 NKJV
Since we are to love one another as He has loved us, that means we should be
willing to lay down our lives for each other.
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The discourse contains the allegory of The Vine which positions Jesus as the vine
and the disciples as the branches.
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Jesus then warns the disciples of upcoming persecutions: "If the world hates you,
remember that they hated Me before you".
In the final part of the discourse (John 17:1-26) Jesus prays for:
1) Himself,
2) His disciples and
3) the coming church (us).
While the earlier parts of the discourse are addressed to the disciples, this final
part addresses the Father, as Jesus turns His eyes to Heaven and prays.
The key themes of the prayer are:
1) the glorification of the Father and
2) petitions for the unity of the disciples through love.
Jesus Prays for Himself John 17:1-5
Jesus Prays for His Disciples John 17:6-19
Jesus Prays for Us John 17:20-26
At the end of the Farewell Discourse, this prayer of Jesus is known as the
Farewell Prayer or as the High Priestly Prayer (why?).
In the Old Covenant, it was the high priest who offered the bloody sacrifice to
Yahweh on His sacred altar and whose responsibility it was to serve the
covenant people as God's representative and the people's intercessor.
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Now, in the New Covenant order, it is Jesus Who is offering Himself as the
sacrifice and His intercession on behalf of His disciples to God the Father.
Therefore, this prayer has come to be known as His High Priestly Prayer.
As we read the words of Jesus' prayer we have the sense that even though He is
still speaking from the Upper Room in Jerusalem, He has already begun to cross
the barrier between time and eternity and that He has already taken His first steps
toward the cross and His return to the Father (see John 17:11 “Now I am no longer in the
world…”).
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Once the prayer has ended, the events of Jesus' Passion and the end of His
earthly life unfold rather quickly.
John 17:1-26 NKJV
Jesus Prays for Himself
John 17:1-5 NKJV 1 Jesus spoke these words, lifted up His eyes to heaven, and said: “Father, the
hour has come. Glorify Your Son, that Your Son also may glorify You, 2 as You
have given Him authority over all flesh, that He should give eternal life to as
many as You have given Him. 3 And this is eternal life, that they may know You,
the only true God, and Jesus Christ Whom You have sent. 4 I have glorified You
on the earth. I have finished the work which You have given Me to do. 5 And
now, O Father, glorify Me together with Yourself, with the glory which I had with
You before the world was.”
John 17:1-5 NKJV
The Lord Jesus is handing in His final report to the Father.
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Jesus hasn't died on the Cross yet; but, as far as God is concerned, He
speaks of things which are not as if they are.
Future tense for God is just as accurate as the past.
Our Lord Jesus is going to the Cross to die and then will rise again.
On the Cross, He said, "It is finished" (John 19:30).
That means our redemption was finished.
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Colossians 2:14 NKJV 14 having wiped out the handwriting of requirements that was against us, which
was contrary to us. And He has taken it out of the way, having nailed it to the
cross.
Colossians 2:14 NKJV
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He has done everything that was necessary.
We can put a period there.
We cannot add a thing to His finished work.
If our salvation was dependent on what Jesus did plus our works, He could not
have said, “It is finished!”
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Therefore, the Gospel of salvation is not what God is asking you to do, but what
God is telling you that He has already done for you.
What He is looking for is your response to that which saves you.
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Notice in verses 1-5 that since Jesus prayed for Himself, it is not out of line nor
even a mark of selfishness for us to pray for ourselves.
When you and I go to God in prayer, we need to get our own hearts and lives
right with God.
We need to get in tune with Heaven.
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Every instrument should be tuned up before it is played.
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Before you and I begin to pray for others, we need to pray for ourselves.
That is not selfishness; it is essential.
The Upper Room Discourse (Farewell Discourse) is like climbing a mountain,
climaxing in this prayer.
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Here is what others have said about this great chapter:
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Matthew Henry:
"It is the most remarkable prayer following the most full and consoling discourse
ever uttered on the earth."
Martin Luther:
"This is truly beyond measure a warm and hearty prayer. Jesus opens the depths
of His heart, both in reference to us and to His Father, and He pours them all out.
It sounds so honest, so simple.
It is so deep, so rich, so wide.
No one can fathom it."
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This is the prayer which John Knox read over and over in his lifetime.
When he was on his deathbed, his wife asked him. "Where do you want
me to read?" He replied, "Read where I first put my anchor down, in the
seventeenth chapter of John."
We have the record of many others who have read it over and over.
This is a great portion of Scripture.
It is Jesus’ high priestly intercession for us which He most likely is praying for us
right this moment.
It is a revelation to us of the communication which constantly passes
between the Lord Jesus and the Father in Heaven.
His entire earthly life was a life of prayer.
He began His ministry by going into a solitary place to pray.
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Often He went up into a mountain to pray and spent the night in prayer.
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He is our great Intercessor.
He prays for you and for me constantly and if you forgot to pray this morning, He
didn't.
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God always hears and answers Jesus' prayer just the way He prays it.
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God answers my prayers also, but not always the way I pray them -- sometimes
He must answer my prayer with a no, or He may accomplish what I ask by a
completely different method or at a different time.
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Jesus said:
John 11:41-42 41 "… Father, I thank Thee that Thou hast heard me. 42 And I knew that Thou
hearest Me always: but because of the people which stand by I said it, that they
may believe that Thou hast sent Me".
John 11:41-42
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For Jesus, life had a climax and that was the Cross.
To Him the Cross was the glory of life and the way to the glory of eternity.
"The hour has come," He said, "for the Son of Man to be glorified" (John 12:23).
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What did Jesus mean when he repeatedly spoke of the Cross as His glory and
His glorification?
It is one of the facts of history that again and again it was in death that the great
ones found their glory.
It was when they died, and how they died, which showed people what and who
they really were.
They may have been misunderstood, undervalued, condemned as criminals in
their lives, but their deaths showed their true place in the scheme of things.
Joan of Arc was burned as a witch and a heretic by the English.
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One of the secretaries of the King of England left the scene saying: "We are all
lost because we have burned a saint."
Again and again a martyr's majesty has appeared in their deaths.
It was so with Jesus, for even the centurion at the foot of the Cross was left
saying: "Truly this was the Son of God" (Matthew 27:54).
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The Cross was the glory of Jesus because He was never more majestic than in
His death.
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The Cross was His glory because its magnet drew men to Him in a way that even
His life had never done—and it remains so to this day.
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Jesus Prays for Himself
John 17:1 NKJV 1 Jesus spoke these words, lifted up His eyes to heaven, and said: “Father, the
hour has come. Glorify Your Son, that Your Son also may glorify You,
John 17:1 NKJV
Verse 1 says:
"Jesus spoke these words."
Which words?
Jesus is referring to the words in the chapters we have just studied,
chapters 13 -- 16.
Now He stops speaking to the disciples, and He speaks to the Father.
Although He is speaking to the Father in this chapter, He is speaking to
Him for their benefit -- and for our benefit also.
Even today He is our great Intercessor!
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We may wonder what He is praying for us; well, here it is.
This is the Lord's Prayer, the prayer that He prays to the Father for us.
The prayer in the Sermon on the Mount is not really the Lord's Prayer, it is the
Model Prayer.
It is the prayer that He taught to the disciples.
When Jesus begins the Model Prayer with "Our Father," He means this for
all the believers.
But here, He does not say “our Father”, He only says “Father”.
It says that He "lifted up his eyes to Heaven," which means that His eyes
were open.
Of course we can pray without bowing our heads & closing our eyes.
We can pray as we walk or as we work or as we drive, or as we suffer.
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This was a prayer of hope and expectancy! “Father, the hour has come”.
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What hour?
Well, the hour that had been set long ago in eternity.
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As He speaks, the clock is striking the hour that was set back in eternity,
because He was the Lamb of God slain before the foundation of the world.
(Revelation 13:8)
It was arranged back then; now "the hour is come.”
This ‘hour’ had been mentioned by Jesus before in John 7.30; 12.23; and in 13.1.
It referred to the hour of His going from the world to His Father (7.33; 13.1), by
way of the cross (12.23).
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It was the last final period of His life from the moment when He knew that the end
was coming (13.1).
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John 13:1 NKJV 1 Now before the Feast of the Passover, when Jesus knew that His hour had
come that He should depart from this world to the Father…
It was the hour of unbearable suffering.
But in the end it was through the cross and resurrection that Jesus would
be glorified and vindicated and would bring great glory to the Father, for
there on the cross, and through His resurrection, would be carried out the
plan which had been laid in eternity for the redemption of His people
(Ephesians 1.4-8; 2 Timothy 1.9).
Jesus is here conscious that He is about to face a battle of huge
dimensions which will result in great glory.
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In Daniel 7:13-14 (536 BC) when the Son of Man comes into the presence of the
Ancient of Days, He comes out of suffering to receive ‘dominion and glory and a
kingdom’.
But that glory must come through a cross before He receives the crown.
He must be glorified through suffering.
Remember that when He began His ministry at the wedding of Cana, His mother
said to Him, "They have no wine."
His answer to her was, "Woman, what have I to do with thee? Mine hour is not yet
come" (John 2:3-4).
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Now the hour has come, the hour when He will pay for your sins and mine.
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It is the hour when all the creation of God will see the love of God displayed and
lavished as He takes your sins and my sins upon Himself and dies a vicarious,
substitutionary, redemptive death for you and for me.
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Ephesians 1:7-8 NKJV 7 In Him we have redemption through His blood, the forgiveness of sins, in
accordance with the riches of God’s grace 8 that he lavished on us with all
wisdom and understanding.
Ephesians 1:7-8 NKJV
And it won't end there; it will go on to the Resurrection.
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The death of Christ demonstrates that God is a loving Father Who so loved the
world that He gave His only begotten Son.
Romans 5:8 NKJV 8 But God demonstrates His own love toward us, in that while we were still sinners,
Christ died for us.
Romans 5:8 NKJV
Then the Son was raised from the dead, ascended back into Heaven, and He
will be given a name that is above every name, that at the name of Jesus every
knee should bow and every tongue confess that Jesus Christ is Lord, to the glory
of God the Father!
John 17:1b
“Glorify thy Son, that Thy Son also may glorify Thee.”
John 17:1b
Here it is made openly apparent that it was Jesus’ temporary task that was the
reason why He at this stage did not enjoy all of the glory of His Godhood.
He had a temporarily lower status because He had ‘emptied Himself’ of His
Godhood in order to become man, in accordance with the Father’s purpose.
But now He was to be restored to His former position and status again in all of His
glory.
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The partial glory of Jesus had been revealed on earth, both in the life that He
lived (1.14), and in the signs that He gave (2.11; 11.4).
John 2:11 NKJV 11 This beginning of signs Jesus did in Cana of Galilee, and manifested His glory;
and His disciples believed in Him.
John 2:11 NKJV
John 11:4 NKJV
4 When Jesus heard that, He said, “This sickness (of Lazarus) is not unto death,
but for the glory of God, that the Son of God may be glorified through it.”
John 11:4 NKJV
John has also brought out that it will be revealed by His death and resurrection,
by which the Son of Man will be glorified (7.39; 13.31).
John 13:31 NKJV 31 So, when he (Judas) had gone out, Jesus said, “Now the Son of Man is
glorified, and God is glorified in Him.
John 13:31 NKJV
But that is a limited glory.
What is spoken of here is a glory that far surpasses that glory.
It is unlimited!
It is the glory referred to in 12.41, the glory that was always His as God before He
‘emptied Himself’ (Philippians 2.7), the glory that has been His from eternity past.
John 12:41 NKJV 41 These things Isaiah said when he saw His glory and spoke of Him.
John 12:41 NKJV
Isaiah 6:1-4 NKJV 1 In the year that King Uzziah died, I saw the Lord sitting on a throne, high and
lifted up, and the train of His robe filled the temple. 2 Above it stood seraphim;
each one had six wings: with two he covered his face, with two he covered his
feet, and with two he flew. 3 And one cried to another and said:
“Holy, holy, holy is the Lord of hosts;
The whole earth is full of His glory!”
4 And the posts of the door were shaken by the voice of him who cried out, and
the house was filled with smoke.
Isaiah 6:1-4 NKJV
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It is the glory of the eternal Word (1.1), which He had for a while put aside in
order to bring about redemption, but would now be receiving again.
John 12:28 NKJV 28 Father, glorify Your name.”
Then a voice came from heaven, saying, “I have both glorified it and will
glorify it again.”
John 12:28 NKJV
Glorify Thy Name
Donna Adkins (born 1940)
Father, we love You
We worship and adore You
Glorify Thy Name in all the earth!
Glorify Thy Name
Glorify Thy Name
Glorify Thy Name in all the earth!
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Jesus, we love You
We worship and adore You
Glorify Thy Name in all the earth!
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Glorify Thy Name
Glorify Thy Name
Glorify Thy Name in all the earth!
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Spirit, we love You
We worship and adore You
Glorify Thy Name in all the earth!
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Glorify Thy Name
Glorify Thy Name
Glorify Thy Name in all the earth!
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Above all this reveals His outstanding and all pervasive love (John 3.16; 1 John
4.9-10; Romans 5.8).
What greater glory could there be than the glory revealed when a holy but
merciful God surrenders His own Son to die in awful suffering, a suffering in which
He Himself will take part, for undeserving and sinful men, in order to finally
redeem them and bring them with Him into His glory?
Jesus now turns to His mission on earth.
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John 17:2-4 NKJV 2 as You have given Him authority over all flesh, that He should give eternal life to
as many as You have given Him. 3 And this is eternal life, that they may know
You, the only true God, and Jesus Christ Whom You have sent. 4 I have glorified
You on the earth. I have finished the work which You have given Me to do.
John 17:2-4 NKJV
The Lord Jesus is handing in His final report to the Father.
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Jesus hasn't died on the Cross yet; but, as far as God is concerned, He
speaks of things which are not as if they are.
Future tense for God is just as accurate as the past.
Our Lord Jesus is going to the Cross to die and then will rise again.
On the Cross, He said, "It is finished" (John 19:30).
That means our redemption was finished.
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He has done everything that was necessary.
We can put a period there.
We cannot add a thing to His finished work.
If our salvation was dependent on what Jesus did plus our works, He could not
have said, “It is finished!”
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Therefore, the Gospel of salvation is not what God is asking you to do, but what
God is telling you that He has already done for you.
What He is looking for is your response to that which saves you.
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John 17:5 NKJV 5 And now, O Father, glorify Me together with Yourself, with the glory which I had
with You before the world was.
John 17:5 NKJV
In Philippians 2, it speaks of Jesus emptying Himself.
Some try to teach that He emptied Himself of His deity.
Wrong!
John makes it very clear that the Word became flesh.
That little baby in Mary's lap is God, and He could have spoken this
universe out of existence.
He wasn't just 99.9% God;
He was, and is, 100% God.
So of what did He empty
Himself?
He emptied Himself of His prerogatives of deity; He laid aside His glory.
At Christmas we make a great deal of the shepherds and the angels and
the wise men who came to see Him.
That is not the way it should have been.
He is the Lord of glory, and the whole creation should have been there;
every human being on the face of the earth should have been there.
People will come from all parts of a country and even all parts of the world for
the funeral of a great political leader.
The whole world should have been at the birth of the Lord of glory when He
came to earth.
Although He could have claimed such homage, instead He laid aside His
glory.
In John 17, He is ready to return to Heaven, back to the glory.
Would you like to know exactly what Jesus is praying for you?
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The answer is found in John 17:20-26 that we will discuss next Sunday!
‘Even as You gave Him authority over all flesh.’ The idea is that this One Who
goes to His death is primarily the Judge of all the earth and has authority over all
men.
He has the authority to do whatever He will, and as a result He has also the
authority to forgive sins (Mark 2.10).
He came to the world from the Father where the world was under His feet.
Thus He could have done what He wanted to do, for He had authority over all.
Isaiah 66:1-2 NKJV 1 Thus says the Lord:
“Heaven is My throne,
And earth is My footstool.
Where is the house that you will build Me?
And where is the place of My rest? 2 For all those things My hand has made,
And all those things exist,”
Says the Lord.
“But on this one will I look:
On him who is poor (humble) and of a contrite spirit,
And who trembles at My word.
Isaiah 66:1-2 NKJV
He could have taken power and ruled as Satan tempted Him to do
(Matthew 4.8-9).
But that would not have achieved the object of redemption.
So He willingly and tenaciously chose a different path, the path that God had
laid down, giving eternal life to those given to Him by the Father in full awareness
of the consequences of His choice.
Notice the contrast between ‘being given authority over’ and ‘receiving as a gift
from the Father’, the one authoritarian and judgmental the other personal and
redeeming.
The idea of His being given authority over all flesh is monumental.
All things had been committed into His hands.
He was sole arbiter of the destinies of all men (compare Matthew 7.21-23).
This is a startling statement.
He has authority over all flesh!
He could make this universe and every one in it bow to Him.
He could bring us all into subjection to Him and make robots out of all of us.
Although that is the last thing He would want to do (if He had wanted puppets,
He would have made us puppets), He has the power over all flesh.
The church is God's love gift to Jesus Christ.
So He gives eternal life to as many "as thou hast given Him."
John 17:3 NKJV 3 And this is eternal life, that they may know You, the only true God, and Jesus
Christ Whom You have sent.
John 17:3 NKJV
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"That they might know thee."
It is not the amount of knowledge you have, but the kind of knowledge
that is important.
It is Whom you know.
Name droppers know - it is also important Who knows you.
Do you know Jesus Christ?
Does He know you?
In the same way, it is not the amount of faith you have but the kind of faith
that is important.
Spurgeon said:
"It is not thy joy in Christ that saves thee. It is Christ. It is not thy faith in Christ,
though that be the instrument. It is Christ's blood and merit."
"This is life eternal, that they might know Thee the only true God, and Jesus
Christ."
Faith comes by hearing, hearing the Word of God.
What does the Word of God say?
The facts are that Jesus died for our sins, was buried, and rose again.
Our knowledge of the facts and our response to that knowledge is faith.
Faith is trusting Christ as our own Savior.
Life eternal is to know God and to know Jesus Christ.
Jesus is His name as Savior, and Christ is His title -- the Messiah, the King of Israel.
To know Him means to grow in grace and in the knowledge of Christ.
When we move on in the knowledge of the Lord Jesus Christ, we come to
the place of assurance.
http://www.goodmessengers.org/salvationtwo.jpeg
Anyone without the assurance of salvation is either unsaved or is just a
babe in Christ.
They need to move on to the place where they know that they are saved.
1 John 5:11-13 NKJV 11 And this is the testimony: that God has given us eternal life, and this life is in His
Son. 12 He who has the Son has life; he who does not have the Son of God does
not have life. 13 These things I have written to you who believe in the name of the
Son of God, that you may know (not hope so, not maybe) that you have eternal
life, and that you may continue to believe in the name of the Son of God.
1 John 5:11-13 NKJV
Life eternal is to know the only genuine God and to know Jesus Christ.
This is the reason that the study of the Word of God is so important.
Many people stay on the fringe of things and are never sure they are saved.
In 1869 Hudson Taylor was influenced by a passage on personal holiness from a
book called "Christ Is All" by Henry Law that was sent to him by a fellow
missionary, John McCarthy. "The Lord Jesus received is holiness begun; the Lord
Jesus cherished is holiness advancing; the Lord Jesus counted upon as never
absent would be holiness complete."
After His resurrection He said to Mary,
John 20:17
I am not yet ascended to My Father: but go to My brethren, and say unto them, I
ascend unto My Father, and your Father; and to My God, and your God.
http://rainbowcastle.org/He_is_risen.jpg
In other words, I have not yet ascended to your Father, yours by the new birth,
and to My Father, Mine because of My position in the Trinity.
By the same token, you and I can never pray this prayer of John 17.
This is His prayer.
