Morning folks, good to be with you this morning. In a world of social media posts and AI editing, where people can manage their image so that the versions of themselves that others see can be very carefully stage managed, where can you go if you want to see and get an insight into what somebody is really like? Where can you go to see what they really care about? Where can you see somebody’s true, authentic selves? Maybe if they had a personal diary, you’d get to see their innermost thoughts. Of course, we know that even those can be crafted to be the person I would like to be, rather than who I actually am.

But perhaps if there’s one place in which we’d be likely to see what really makes somebody tick, that opens up a window into the desires of our hearts, that place is probably personal prayer. Just me, talking to the God who knows every inch of me and before whom I have no secrets. And if that prayer is made in a situation of great duress or under threat, then it’s all the more likely to be a genuine expression of what I care about, what I most desire.

And so if we want to know what Jesus was really like, even beyond his public teaching and his miracles, if we want an insight into what made Jesus tick, so that when all else was stripped away and you dug down to the bottom of his heart, so you could see his concerns and his desires, then we can go to no better place than John chapter 17, because we are given an amazing window into Jesus praying to his heavenly Father. So if you’ve got a Bible there or you’ve got your device, let’s read the start of John chapter 17 together. You’ll find that on the church Bibles on page 1085, and it’d be good to keep that open as we go through it this morning.

We’re going to read the first five verses, the introduction to this wonderful prayer of Jesus. After Jesus said this, he looked towards heaven and prayed, Father, the hour has come. Glorify your son, that your son may glorify you.

(2:52 – 4:24)

For you granted him authority over all people, that he might give eternal life to all those you have given him. Now, this is eternal life, that they know you, the only true God and Jesus Christ, whom you have sent. I have brought you glory on earth by finishing the work you gave me to do.

And now, Father, glorify me in your presence with the glory I had with you before the world began. This is the word of God. John 17, we’re starting it this morning.

We’ll go into the rest of the chapter next week. It is described as one writer, as one of the most sacred passages in scripture. Another describes it as one of the mountain peaks of revelation.

Because there is a real sense in John 17 that we are standing on holy ground. It’s not that there aren’t other prayers of Jesus in the gospels, but those tend to be quite short, summary type prayers. But here in John chapter 17, we have Jesus’ longest prayer by far, and one that in so many ways lays his heart bare.

(4:25 – 4:59)

Just to set the scene of where we are in John’s gospel, you’ll know if you’ve been following along our series in recent weeks, that Jesus has been teaching his disciples in what is sometimes known as the upper room ministry, and he has been preparing them for his departure. He’s taught them about the Holy Spirit that God will send, and he will send after he has departed. He is getting them ready for persecution that’s going to lie ahead, because a big change is coming.

(5:00 – 5:41)

After three years of being in the care and protection of Jesus, these disciples are soon going to be facing the world without his physical presence, and that’s an unsettling prospect. And so Jesus wants to reassure them. See the end of chapter 16 in verse 33, I have told you these things so that in me you may have peace.

In this world you will have trouble, but take heart. Or as the old versions used to say, be of good cheer. I have overcome the world.

(5:41 – 6:46)

But if that change was daunting and troubling for the disciples, how much more so for Jesus himself? Because for that change to happen, it meant chapter 17 verse 1, that the hour had come. The hour or the time is something that John has been trailing throughout this gospel. It’s referred to somewhat enigmatically in a number of places right from the start of the gospel.

There’ll be some verses on the screen. Back in chapter 2 verse 4 at the famous wedding at Cana, Jesus says to his mother, woman why do you involve me? Jesus replied, my hour has not yet come. Then we go on about chapter 7. You go to the festival, Jesus speaking, I am not going up to this festival because my time has not yet fully come.

(6:47 – 8:53)

Later in the same chapter, at this they tried to seize him, but no one laid a hand on him because his hour had not yet come. And then chapter 8 verse 20, he spoke these words while teaching in the temple courts near the place where the offerings were put, yet no one seized him because his hour had not yet come. And if you’d been reading through the gospel of John for the first time, maybe you didn’t know anything about it, you would be intrigued.

You would be thinking, what’s the hour? What’s the time? It creates a kind of suspense in the gospel. Jesus is heading somewhere. Something big clearly lies ahead.

And then as we enter, what will be the last week of Jesus’ life in chapter 12 verse 23, we read, Jesus replied, the hour has come for the son of man to be glorified. Now that word glorification or glory comes from a Hebrew word. I’m not a Hebrew scholar, but this is what they say, comes from a Hebrew word that has the idea of weight or heaviness associated with it.

It’s a sense of great substance, which became used for having the sense of having honour or splendour. So to be glorified was to be praiseworthy, was to be held in high esteem, was to be admired. And in that regard, the glory of something was also the idea of that thing’s greatest and most outstanding feature.

Your glory could be your greatest characteristic or achievement. And the Bible, the book of Proverbs talks about the glory of young men being their strength. What’s the kind of standout quality of young men, particularly in a kind of Old Testament agricultural culture? It is their strength, their physical ability.

(8:54 – 11:07)

Today, we might say something like the glory of India is the Taj Mahal. You get the idea. And the hour that has been trailed by John, it seems, is the time, Jesus says in chapter 12, when Jesus will be glorified.

Now that doesn’t sound too bad, does it? But then Jesus immediately says, chapter 12, verse 24, very truly, I tell you, unless a grain of wheat falls to the ground and dies, it remains only a single seed. But if it dies, it produces many seeds. You see, the hour of Jesus’ glorification will also be the hour of his death, even death on a cross, which of course doesn’t make any sense from a human point of view.

After all, what could be less glorious, less honouring, less praiseworthy than dying a criminal death on a Roman cross? A method of execution that was designed to humiliate and shame its victims, publicly degrading them before mocking crowds. And yet this is the wonder of the gospel, of the message of Jesus Christ, that it will be through that very death and all its weakness and ignominy that Jesus will achieve and secure God’s greatest glory, the rescue of men and women, people ruined by sin, cut off from God, facing judgement, will have their sin cancelled out and can be restored and brought back home to God because of what Jesus will do on the cross. Now, of course, that glory would subsequently be revealed in the resurrection and the ascension and will be seen in his coming again.

(11:07 – 12:10)

But in one sense, those are the confirmation, the vindication, the celebration of the glory that would be secured at the cross. And as Jesus prays this prayer and lifts his eyes to heaven at the start of John chapter 17, the hour is now less than 24 hours away. So you see, when Jesus prays at the start of chapter 17, Father, glorify your Son, that’s not a selfish, egotistical prayer.

It’s a prayer based upon incredible self-giving. It’s a prayer predicated on the greatest act of sacrificial love that you and I could ever contemplate. It’s the prayer of one who is ready to endure and suffer so that you and I might have new life and be free from condemnation.

(12:12 – 12:43)

And notice how the Father and the Son are working together in this. Glorify the Son so that your Son may glorify you. Because Jesus came to do the Father’s will.

Note down in verse 4, I have brought you glory on earth by finishing the work you gave me to do. Jesus brings God glory by finishing the work the Father gave him. That work being to rescue lost souls.

(12:44 – 13:32)

That’s the Father’s desire. That gets impact a little more in verse 2. The Father grants the Son authority over all people so that the Son might give eternal life to those given to Him by the Father. Now there are some deep waters in these verses.

There are some levels of mystery here. I’m not sure I can explain all the mechanisms or workings of it. Indeed, I was very heartened after scratching my head over this for a while to read a comment from J.C. Ryle who said, The wisest Christian will always confess that there are things here which he cannot fully explain.

(13:33 – 15:07)

Why does the Father need to give Jesus authority over all in order for Jesus to give others eternal life? Don’t ask me to explain to you the metaphysics of that. But here is the bigger question. Here’s the most pertinent question.

Why does the Father give all authority to the Son? He does it so that the Son might save and rescue and restore people like you and me. God the Father and God the Son both giving of themselves, giving up, giving out to the very depths of their divinity because you are so precious and so loved by them. The hymn puts it, Out in the desert he heard its cry, sick and helpless and ready to die.

None of the ransomed ever knew how deep were the waters crossed nor how dark the night the Lord went through to find his sheep that was lost. There is incredible self-giving in these simple statements. Verse 3. Now this is eternal life that they know you, the only true God and Jesus Christ whom you have sent.

(15:09 – 17:14)

John’s gospel, we have noted this so many times as we’ve gone through it, is a message of life, of eternal life. And eternal life is more than just everlasting life, although it is also that. Eternal life is the life of God himself.

Not just an endless run of life as we know it now, that would be terrifying, but life that is rich and joyful and satisfied, that never wearies, that never wears thin, unspoiled life. There’s nobody who is happy who wants to die. Sometimes people want to die because of pain or fear or despair.

But life eternal, the Bible tells us, will be a life without tears or mourning or crying or pain, for the old order of things will pass away. There will be no more curse. Life which, because it is the life of God himself, Jesus says, can only come through a knowledge of God and Jesus.

Now of course by knowledge, Jesus here means more than just having some facts in your head. It’s about a relationship with God, relational knowledge. You know, if somebody asks me, do you know Paul McCartney? Well, as a former Beatles Brain of Britain contestant 1990, I’d fancy I might know rather more about Paul McCartney than some of his grandchildren do.

But I don’t know him. I know lots about him, but it’s just data. And sadly, I suspect that even if Paul McCartney knew about me, he’s probably got all the friends he wants.

(17:16 – 17:30)

But God knows all about you, and he wants you to know him. And the door is open through Jesus. You notice in that verse that Jesus and God can’t be separated.

(17:32 – 19:11)

One without the other is neither possible nor optional. Back in John 14, Jesus had made that abundantly clear. I am the way, the truth, and the life.

No one comes to the Father except through me. And how could it be otherwise? It is to Jesus that the Father has given the authority to grant eternal life. So open your heart to Jesus.

Thank him for that sacrifice. Humble yourself, admit your need, and ask him to give you eternal life, that you might know the one true eternal God is your Father. Now, of course, some eagle-eyed people might be thinking, well, what about the end of verse 2? It says there that you granted him authority over all people, that he might give eternal life to those you have given him.

Jesus says eternal life will be given to those the Father gives to Jesus. So then is this out of my hands? If it’s up to the Father, where’s my choice? And yes, the Bible clearly teaches that people can only become Christians if God, through the Holy Spirit, is at work in their lives. And yet at the same time, the Bible is very clear that you’ve got a decision to make, and you can absolutely make it now.

(19:12 – 19:34)

If you want to become a Christian to receive eternal life, you can. To say otherwise is just an excuse. Let me conduct a little experiment.

You can all join in with this one, but don’t worry, you can do it very discreetly. I want you to look at your fingers. Do it very discreetly.

(19:35 – 21:17)

Keep them still, but in your head, without moving them, order them to move. Really concentrate. Move, move, move, move.

And now just move them. Interesting. You see, you can go through life, and you can come to church Sunday after Sunday, and you can say, God, if you want me to become a Christian, move me, move me, open my heart, open my heart.

Or you know what? You can just move and open your heart. And one day you’ll look back and know why. Let’s just take a moment to pray, in case that’s you.

Heavenly Father, we thank you that your arms are open. Your call is that each one of us might come and know you and receive eternal life. Lord, grant us the faith to move in our hearts, even now, to ask that Jesus would come to receive his forgiveness, to bow before his majesty, to call him Saviour and Lord, that we might know you, the only true God, and Jesus Christ, whom you have sent.

Amen. In verse four, Jesus prays, saying that he has finished the work.

(21:18 – 22:33)

I have brought you glory on earth by finishing the work you gave me to do. I think in saying that, he’s not just thinking about his previous ministry, but he’s looking forward and including the cross in that statement, because there will be no going back. Rather like a film in which the hero is getting ready to complete his mission.

As he prepares to kind of go out to do it, someone says to him, you know, if you go through that door, there’s no coming back. You know what’s going to happen? Well, in John chapter 17, Jesus has already stepped through the door. And now father, verse five, glorify me in your presence with the glory I had with you before the world began.

I think that’s very moving. Jesus looks ahead beyond the cross to going home. Of course, Jesus and the father could never be separated, not least because they shared the same divinity.

(22:35 – 23:13)

But in becoming like us, Jesus gave up the glories and the blessings of heaven. As Philippians puts it, he made himself nothing. He emptied himself.

He left the father’s house in search of the sheep. He became a man of sorrows acquainted with grief. But his hope as he looks forwards, his desire, his joy is to be once again in the father’s presence, to share again the glory with the father they had before the world began.

(23:15 – 25:07)

And the amazing thing is this morning that people like you and me, if we know him, will be part of that glory. Paul writes to the Christians in Ephesus that those who hope in Christ will be for the praise of God’s glory. He writes elsewhere to the Romans that we will share in God’s glory.

And that, just as a side point, as an encouragement for us, I think as we make our own way through a broken world, often with a sense of loss about the past or perhaps trepidation about the future, that we too, like Jesus, can look ahead and have hope that our destination beyond the trials, if we know him, is glory. So, what does it take to go home? Because if God is our maker and we were made to know and enjoy him forever, then our ultimate home, the place that really can meet all our deepest longings, we thought about this at Christmas, all that sense of nostalgia, is in God and Jesus Christ whom he sent. John chapter 17, verses 1 to 5, the heart of Jesus revealed, the heart of one who shared the love of the Father for lost souls:

people like you and me. The heart of one who is ready to be shamed that we might be lifted up. The heart of one who received authority in order to give us eternal life.

(25:09 – 25:26)

The heart of one whose desire was to honour his Father and be in his presence. May God grant every one of us to know him and the Father who sent him. God bless these thoughts from his word.

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