Fellowship Church Messages
7/29/24 - John 17:1-5 - This Is Eternal Life
please pray with me. Heavenly Father we thank you for today. We thank you that you never change. We thank you for your immutability. That even as things all around the world change and things change in our country and things change in our families and in our personal lives, you are the one constant we can always rely on. You never change. Jesus Christ is the same yesterday, today, and forever. We never want to take that truth for granted. We anchor our souls into it. We thank you for your word. The truth of your word never changes. The plan of your salvation for us never changed. And the truths for holy living have never changed. Lord, we turn to your word once more again and pray that your spirit would go forth and move in our hearts and our minds and in our lives that we may be drawn a little bit closer to you through the reading of your word this morning. And I pray all these things in Jesus' name. Amen. There are multiple stories in history where a badly constructed foundation led to a disaster. Some of these have other contributing factors such as environment or attack, but one story stands above the rest. In the main reason for the constructions disaster being squarely on human incompetence, human mistakes, and government instability. That story is of the Quebec Bridge collapse in 1907. Now, I didn't know this until I discovered it in my research and maybe some of you did already, but the province of Quebec, Canada here, our neighbors up north, is split down the middle by the St. Lawrence River, but it's all the same province. This whole thing is Quebec, but it's split down the middle here by the St. Lawrence River. And if you zoom in on the area, what you have is this capital of Quebec city up to the north here. And then you have another very populated area in this place called La V, right across the river. Before the conception of building a bridge to connect the two locations, the only ways across were by ferryboat or by an ice bridge in the winter. An ice bridge, because it's Canada. An idea to build an actual bridge in the area was being mulled over as early as the mid-1800s, and the bridge had undergone several phases of planning, engineering, and governmental authority through the late 1800s. The first step of compromise occurred because during the late 1800s, Canada had four different prime ministers in the span of only five years, averaging a prime minister a year. Following that time of governmental instability, a prime minister was elected who served for the next 15 years and started pushing for this bridge in the early part of his career. But that's right after this part of government instability. That's where the human shortcomings really start mounting. And Edward Hor was appointed as the chief engineer for the company who would do the construction. However, Edward Hor had never worked on a bridge anywhere near as long as the one needed to cross the river. Another man calling Wood Schreiber served as the government's chief engineer of railways and canals. He had a man named RC Douglas assist him, but Douglas was fired for his opposition to the initial design calculations given to them by the bridge contractors. Remember that detail, okay? RC Douglas getting fired for that. When Schreiber requested the help of another experienced engineer to replace Douglas, he was overruled by the government, demoted a couple of years later, and replaced himself. Are you starting to see the snowball of mistakes and instability starting to form here? By 1904, the bridge on the Levis side was well into construction, and by 1907, the bridge was almost complete. In the summer of 1907, Norman McClure, one of the men from the engineering team, began to notice distortions and warping of key foundational elements, including major beams that upheld the bridge. He repeatedly tried warning the overseeing engineer, but was told his concerns were not warranted, and the beams must have been bent before they were installed. Things never changed, do they? By August 27, it was clear to McClure that this simply was not the case, and he insisted on meeting with the overseeing engineer. Two days later, on August 29, the two met in New York City, and the overseeing engineer finally agreed when McClure's grave concerns. The two then telegraphed the main offices of the bridge construction company, but the message didn't reach them in time. That afternoon, the southern part. I know that's a bad photo, but hey, it's 1907. The southern part of the main central section of the bridge collapsed in 15 seconds, killing 75 workers and injuring 11 more. The cause of the collapse, the original design calculations, if you remember, the ones that the assistant chief engineer was fired over his opposition towards. Horribly, did not include the figure for support of the weight of the bridge itself, known in structural engineering as dead weight. In other words, from the very beginning, the design calculations that the entire four-year construction was based upon, did not take into account the fact that the bridge couldn't even support its own weight, let alone the weight of trains and other traffic and goods traveling over it. When the very get-go, the design foundation was woefully under constructed and never meant to be a solid foundation for anything, including itself. Today we're going to be looking at the first third of the most famous prayer in all of scripture. And that's the prayer of Jesus to God the Father that has been famously dubbed the high priestly prayer for centuries. This first part of the high priestly prayer of John 17 is the crucially immovable bedrock foundation for believers in Jesus' day and for us as believers today. It's absolutely what holds up the entire faith of every follower of Jesus for the past two thousand years. And so it makes all the sense in the world to start here with the most powerful foundation that could ever exist. And again, as we've seen time and time again throughout all of God's Word, everything that has to do with us, especially as followers of Jesus, always, always, always starts with us. Okay, I'm glad some of you have been paying attention. It has nothing to do with us. It always, always, always starts with God. Our creation, our salvation, our preservation, and ushering into the presence of heaven has everything to do with God and His sovereignty. Even the God-given roles of men and women in the family and men and women in the church are founded upon the roles between God the Father and God the Son. And so it should come as no surprise that Jesus' death and resurrection, that which our entire salvation and eternity is founded upon is itself founded upon God the Son's relationship with God the Father. And we'll see what the entire purpose of that death and resurrection was to grant us access to. So if you brought your Bible with you today, please turn to John chapter 17. We are starting John chapter 17 this week, verse one. If you didn't bring your Bible with you, that's okay. There should be one located in the pew in front of you. Please also turn to John chapter 17. We'll be picking up in verse one or look this up on your favorite Bible app on your smartphone. This is what we read. Jesus spoke these things in lifting up His eyes to heaven. He said, Father, the hour has come. Glorify your Son that the Son may glorify you. Last week we ended chapter 16 and the section of Jesus' last instruction personally to His disciples. Like we just talked about chapter 17 in its entirety is Jesus' prayer, the high priestly prayer, to God the Father, which His disciples overheard, one of whom being the one who then recorded it for us in this gospel. Chapter 18 then begins the events that take place after Jesus and His disciples enter the Garden of Gethsemane, which they've been making their way towards all this time from chapters 15 through the end of chapter 17. This last personal instruction at the end of chapter 16, given by Jesus directly to His disciples, ends with what we looked at last week. As noted by one biblical scholar, the declaration of Jesus having overcome the world in anticipation of what would be won and accomplished through His death and resurrection. That focus on His imminent death and what that would accomplish is what connects to this first third of the prayer Jesus gives to God the Father. It's pointed out by one biblical scholar. There are multiple times when Jesus talks about how His hour had not yet come at His first miracle at the wedding in Cana, three years prior, and at the last feast of tabernacles that took place just six months prior to this. At this last feast of the tabernacles we read in John 7 through 8 that the authorities wanted to seize Jesus to kill Him then, but because His hour had not yet come at those points they were unable to. But in John 12 after Jesus' triumphal entry into Jerusalem and the fulfillment that Gentiles had now even come to seek faith in Jesus, Jesus declares, "The hour has come for the Son of Man to be glorified. Now my soul has become troubled, and what am I to say? Father, save me from this hour, but for this purpose I came to this hour. Father, glorify your name." Jesus knew that His entrance into Jerusalem on a donkey and fulfillment of the prophet Zachariah's prophecy, combined with Gentile faith in Him, was the ignition of what would continue to fall into place and hurdle Him headfirst towards the cross. That truth was furthered in John 13 at the last Passover where Jesus would institute the new covenant as observed in the partaking of the elements of communion, the bread and the wine that represented His broken body and spilled blood and ratification of that new covenant. John 13 1, we read, "But now before the feast of the Passover, Jesus knowing that His hour had come that He would depart from this world to the Father, and then they observed the feast of Passover." Now why did I go through all of this? Because even from the very beginning of Jesus' ministry at His first miracle and especially towards the end of His earthly ministry, Jesus understood that His hour of unspeakably tortuous death was completely and thoroughly intertwined with bringing God the Father glory. Again, Jesus states without a doubt in John 12, "For this purpose I came to this hour." The entire purpose of Jesus becoming God incarnate, that is God the Son adding 100% humanity to His 100% deity, was to obey God the Father in His death, fulfill the Father's plan for sacrifice, for human eternal life, and thereby giving glory to God the Father. There was no other purpose. That was it. Now in John 17 1, Jesus tells the Father that hour that all of my first advent and 33 years of my life and three and a half years of ministry whose entire purpose was to lead to and include the excruciating death that is right around the corner was all to bring glory to the Father and is now here. As such, Jesus' request is for the Father to glorify Him as the Son so that the Son would bring glory to Him. What's all wrapped up in this is one biblical scholar notes. Part of that, God the Father glorifying God the Son, is that Jesus is asking for the Father to sustain Him, to sustain Him throughout the entire grueling process that He knew immediately lay ahead of Him in order for Him to fulfill His obedience to the Father's plan for Him thereby glorifying the Father. We see that the main objective for Jesus is to obey the Father to the fullest, fulfill His plan for our eternal life and thereby glorify Him. We read that exactly in Philippians 2 and being found in appearance as a man, he humbled himself by becoming obedient to the point of death, death on a cross for this reason. Also, God highly exalted Him and bestowed on Him the name which is above every name. You see that? It's because of Jesus' obedience and glorifying the Father that the Father glorifies the Son. Now hold that thought for a second. Some here watching online later may be altogether confused by this concept of God the Son and God the Father glorifying one another. What does that truth of giving glory to or glorifying each other even mean? Again, as pointed out by one biblical scholar, the basic Greek word used for glorify and glorified throughout verses 1 through 5 and elsewhere in Scripture means to value God for who He really is. So when we talk about Jesus glorifying God the Father or even the Word of God telling us to live our lives to glorify God, this is what that really means in a concrete understanding, to value God for all and who He really is. When it comes to God then we recognize and honor the highest unequivocal, eternal and holy substance, value, worth and greatness of God who He is in His existence, who He is in His sovereignty and who He is in His relationship towards us. Jesus honored and glorified God through His submission to an obedience of God the Father's will and specifically God the Father's will for Jesus. So Jesus' prayer in verse 1 is for the Father to glorify and sustain Him spiritually, physically and emotionally, in other words, in every way so that He could obey the Father fully thus glorifying Him. We see this carried through in verses 4 through 5, so we're going to skip forward to those verses 1st and then come back to verses 2 through 3, verses 4 through 5, "I 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." As noted by one biblical scholar when Jesus says in verse 4, "All in the past tense that He had accomplished everything the Father had given Him to do, He's assuming the certainty of His death on the cross as well." So the work that verse 4 references includes not only the certainty of Jesus' death on the cross but the certainty of Jesus' resurrection and the certainty of Jesus' ascension back to the Father. It's at the point of ascension to the Father that Jesus requests in verse 5, "He be given the same glory and honor He had with the Father from eternity past before He took on human flesh." And again, according to Philippians 2, 8 through 9, it's because of Jesus' obedience all the way up to and including tortuous death on a cross that God the Father did give Jesus the same glory and honor He had before He became a human. In addition, Philippians 2, 8 and 9 tells us that the Father highly exalted Him, bestowed on Him the name which is above every name and so that at the name of Jesus every knee will bow of those who are in heaven and on earth and under the earth and that every tongue will confess that Jesus Christ is Lord to the glory of God the Father. That, brothers and sisters, is absolute authority, is it not? According to one biblical scholar, what this is saying here, this includes all of God's creation, all the angels and those human souls who are already in heaven, of those who are in heaven, every single human being left on earth at the time of His return, and what? Those under the earth. So, Satan, his demons, and every unregenerate soul in the torment of Hades, every single being that God has created, whether natural or supernatural, will. It is a promise, will, bow their knee to the authority of Jesus as Lord and King, whether willingly and surrender or force to do so. That authority is captured in verse two of this morning's passage. Even as you gave Him authority over all flesh, that to all whom you have given Him, He may give eternal life. Again, just as the imminent work of the death, resurrection, and ascension of Jesus was certain. Jesus' glorification and authority was certain. That's why the first part of verse two is written in the same past tense as verse four is written in. It is a certainty. Why? Because as noted by one biblical scholar of Psalm two already prophesied of God the Father to the Son, ask it of me, and I will certainly give the nations as your inheritance, and the ends of the earth as your possession. You shall break them with a rod of iron. You shall shatter them like earth and where. Serve the Lord with reverence and rejoice with trembling. Kiss, and then what's understood by that term there, the feet of, by paying homage to, and pledging loyalty, kiss the feet of the Son that He not be angry and you perish on the way. For His wrath may be kindled quickly how blessed are all who take refuge in Him. That is a much different image of Jesus than the hippie who just loves everyone as He's often portrayed as. We often think about what Jesus dying on the cross and rising again from the dead means for us. We often think about that, but we don't often think about all that it meant for its deep significance between God the Father and God the Son. That's the entire foundation to our faith. But again, coming back to our opening story, the deep significance of it being between God the Father and God the Son is the very and only foundation for what it means for us. That's what Jesus brings up in the second part of verse two, that the authority Jesus would be slash has already been given over all flesh based only on His obedience to the Father's will and going to the cross extends to His authority and giving eternal life to those who the Father has given to Him. Again, Jesus is declaring the truth to the Father which the disciples are overhearing, the intimate and intertwined relationship between God the Father and God the Son and that being the only and crucially strong foundation for the gift of eternal life being given to humans. To understand this phrase to all whom you have given him, he may have eternal life is noted by one biblical scholar. We must go back to another time Jesus brought up this exact same truth. In other words, what Jesus teaches about this in John 637 through 40 is what he is then directly referring to again with just the simple phrase in verse two. As the principle for understanding scripture employed by the Bereans in the book of Acts and Bible scholars and preachers and the writers of the New Testament throughout the ages have used scripture is the best interpreter of scripture, right? So with that, John 6, everything that the Father gives me will come to me and the one who comes to me I certainly will not cast out and this is the will of him who sent me that of everything that he has given me I will lose nothing but will raise it up on the last day. This is yet one more piece of evidence for God's plan that predetermines who he will give faith and salvation to and therefore eternal life to. It starts again always always always it starts with God the Father and his predetermined plan which we reference from Ephesians one last week blessed be the God and Father of our Lord Jesus Christ just as he chose us in him before the foundation of the world that we would be holy and blameless before him in love he predestined us to adoption as sons and daughters through Jesus Christ to himself according to the good pleasure of his will. As Jesus says in John 6 37 and 39 again everyone who the Father has already chosen will come to believe in Jesus his substitutionary sacrifice for sin resurrection and kingship everyone who the Father has already chosen will come to believe in Jesus his substitutionary sacrifice for sin resurrection and kingship and Jesus will not lose one of those souls any of those souls since it's according to God the Father's plan anyway but will raise every single one of those people up on the day he returns for them so what is that promise to us brothers and sisters Jesus will never lose you but Jesus will raise you up when he comes back for you he will never lose you and he will raise you up when he comes back for you and what this along with multiple other scriptures teaches us is that someone who so-called lost their salvation was never in God the Father's plan to give to Jesus to save in the first place so we need to first have a biblical understanding of both God the Father's and God the Father and God the Son's relationship with one another as the foundation in order to have a biblical understanding of their foundation for our salvation what does this choosing look like what does this gift of eternal life look like does it look like someone who prayed a prayer once and went on living their lives however they wanted there's a merely look like someone who feels like they're a Christian and goes to church every once in a while well Jesus answers that question clearly in verse three as well this is eternal life that they may know you the only true God and Jesus Christ whom you have sent I'm going to read that again but with the emphasis on a different word this is eternal life that they may know you the only true God and Jesus Christ whom you have sent this is the is what the entire purpose of being given eternal life is it's not as has often been referred to as a get out of hell free card it's not a cultural adhering to a Christian tradition it's not being religious there's nothing to do with any of that the entire purpose of God choosing certain people to give to Jesus and therefore give eternal life to is for him to have the closest most intimate relationship with those people I don't want to be too weird with this but since it's the same greek word used for no here in verse three and therefore carries with it a similar meaning with other instances in the new testament as has been noted by one biblical scholar this word no in verse three is meant to convey the same intimacy that married couples share physically and sexually but on a spiritual level again we don't need to go too far down the rabbit trail here but only to understand the same level of connection God created us to have with him God's always wanted to have this closeness with us he went on walks with adam and eve in the garden before they decided they wanted to be like God themselves at that point that connection was severed and as Jesus says here in verses verses two through three the whole purpose of God choosing us for Jesus to die for and pay the price of our sin for is to redeem that we can experience a good level of that now as Romans eight tells us the Holy Spirit moves in us and reminds our spirits that we're God's children that closeness is developed and grown the more we remain in Jesus as the true vine and absorb the truths and nutrients of his word and commune with him daily in prayer and the ultimate goal and location is for God to create a new heavens and new earth where he will dwell among his people in perfect closeness and communion for all of eternity this is eternal life where our lives now are headed and to now personally know and get to know better and better the God who chose and saved us through his own sacrifice those who are blind to the gospel and the truth of God's word believe in either no afterlife or an impersonal one where you hopefully achieve nirvana or being reabsorbed into the life energy of the universe or you just kind of get to live in some kind of paradise where all your dreams come true or you just kind of float around for all of eternity or fly around as angels in a boring cloud filled existence and people say why would I want that as heaven well I think the good lord that that's not what heaven is what we just read in God's word itself stands and start contrast to any and all of that what God has destined for his children is for us to be given eternal life that is to know him personally what God has destined for his children is for us to have that relationship developed through the absorbing and applying of his word communing with him in prayer and having our faith stretched all headed towards the eternal state where we will live in perfect personal connection and relationship with him in a perfect world he creates for us and him to dwell together and it has nothing to do with rituals or doing enough religious things or even trying to be a good person for the sake of achieving nirvana or earning favor with God and earning entrance into heaven or paradise it has nothing to do with attracting impersonal energy or forces or wielding impersonal energy or forces it has nothing to do with opening up chakras or achieving higher and higher levels of enlightenment or knowledge or power it certainly has nothing to do with impersonal and really demonic horoscopes a zodiac of astrological signs tarot card readings or someone claiming to tell you what will happen in your life it has nothing to do with praying to marry saints angels or having a personal praying relationship with any so-called spiritual beings other than with God himself personally and it has nothing to do with chasing spiritual experiences and spiritual highs outside of learning and knowing God's word all of that that I just went through is based and you can see it it's all based on the impersonal and are easy to spot signs of Satan's counterfeit religion like we talked about last week if you want to know if something is part of Satan's counterfeit religion ask yourself the question is it impersonal that's their very first easy to spot sign of it in fact the opposite of eternal life spent in the joys of personal communion with God is eternal death spent in torments and not having a personal relationship with God biblical Christianity is the Trinity as the foundation that Trinitarian God creating us to personally know him and opening up access to that intimate relationship through the substitutionary sacrifice of God the son and obedience to and glorification of the father in order to restore us to God God the father chooses those he wants to have this personal relationship with paid for by the blood of God the son and developed by the transformation of the indwelling Holy Spirit and knowing and living out the written word of God and at the end the Trinitarian God will create a new heavens and new earth for him to enjoy dwelling with us and for us to enjoy the blessings of perfect personal relationship with him as the overall point of this message was focused on and as we'll see referenced and developed throughout the rest of this high priestly prayer the relationship and plan between God the father and God the son the obedience of God the son towards God the father and the glorification between the two of them is the only immovable and perfectly strong foundation for his salvation of us his plan for us his eternal life for us his personal knowing of us in our personal knowing of him it always has everything to do with God and God alone when the apostle refers to Jesus' return for us and everything suddenly becoming clear to us based on his resurrection of our dead bodies reunification of them with the souls he brings back with him and him transforming our minds and how we see and understand everything this is how the apostle Paul describes it for now we see in a mirror dimly but then at that point face to face now I know in part we have a partial knowing of God but then I will know fully just as I also have been fully known when Jesus comes back for us we will personally know God as he always intended for us to know him perfectly just as he has always known us perfectly may we seek to get to know him through the revelation of himself and his word and through prayer now as we await with great excitement and anticipation for that day let's pray heavenly father we thank you for revealing this truth to us in your word that this is eternal life that you created us that you chose us to pay for our sin through God the son so that we could be restored to you and we may know you personally and then have that personal knowing developed throughout our lifetimes and then knowing you perfectly as you know us perfectly when you come back for us thank you for being that personal God who wants to have that relationship with us who wants us to get to know you better thank you for paying the price that was needed so that we could be restored to you so we could have that relationship with you restored and may we all connect to you and remain in the true vine of Jesus through the absorbing of your word and communion with you in prayer as the Holy Spirit transforms our minds to see things the way that you want us to see them and I pray all these things in Jesus name amen please stand with me as you close out our time this morning [BLANK_AUDIO]