Lessons from John 17: God Speaks to Us Through His Word
Did you know that one of my most favorite things to do besides study God’s word is to spend time in prayer? I love to picture myself, in my mind, entering into His throne room and kneeling down before Him and offering up my praise and thanksgiving for all He has done since the beginning of time, all He is currently doing and all He has yet to accomplish.
I delight in singing His praises and offering up my heart of thanksgiving before Him. Also, I am grateful that I can take all my cares and concerns, troubles and challenges before His throne of grace and mercy, love and forgiveness and leave them there trusting that in all that He will do what’s right and best for me, or for others, as I also intercede on their behalves.
Prayer simply put is our conversation with God. God speaks to us through His Word and His Spirit and sometimes others and prayer is our conversation back to Him.
Jesus also loved to pray! In fact, He is our model or example of how to pray, what to pray, when to pray and to whom we are to pray. Did you know that Jesus is praying for you and for me and for our whole class right now, as I speak.
Hebrews 7:25 tells us, “Therefore He (meaning Jesus) is able to save completely those who come to God (in prayer or conversation) through Him (again referring to Jesus who is the way the truth and the life. Which we learned in John 14:6) Why?
“Because He lives to intercede for them (referring to us, believers and unbelievers alike, meaning He prays for all of mankind).
How does knowing that Jesus, God Himself is praying for you and your family and your situation, circumstances and difficulties right now!
As we open up our Bibles to John 17 we see that Jesus begins by praying for Himself~~~John 17:1-5. And then He transitions into praying for His 11 disciples in John 17:6-19 and then He ends His prayer by praying to His Father in heaven for all future believers in John 17:20-26.
After completing what is known to be, “Jesus Upper Room Discourse” where Jesus had gathered with His disciples in this time of private training and personal disclosure of what was to come, Jesus tenderly turns His focus to His Father in heaven as He pours out His prayers, in the presence of precious disciples.
Jesus is about to complete His final mission on earth, as the incarnate God-man by going to the cross and bearing the sins of the world. Jesus would willingly surrendered Himself to the Father as the perfect atoning sacrifice, to which all OT sacrifices pointed to, as a Lamb led to the slaughter the scriptures tell us, out of His love and devotion to His Father on the behalf of sinners like you and me.
But, before He takes on such a monumental task He sets His heart, His mind and His eyes on heaven and His Father who resides there.
And Jesus acknowledges both before His Father in heaven and the 11 disciples who were there in the upper room with Him, “Father, the time has come.” Jesus knew that it was His time. His time to go to the cross in fulfillment of Genesis 3:15 and every other scripture since then. Jesus knew that was only a matter of a few short hours before Judas would also complete his mission of betrayal and that Jesus would be arrested, and crucified and that these men gathered here with Him now would be left on their own and would be tempted and tested and scattered.
And so Jesus, knowing, being fully aware of what is about to happen, asks His Father to Glorify, His Son (Jesus), so that Jesus, His Son might glorify Him.
You were asked in your lesson, specifically in question #3 to define what the word, “glory” means and what do you learn from these first five verses about why Jesus asked His Father to glorify Him.
So, let’s begin by defining the word glory. I came across two definitions that I would like to bring out here for the purpose of this lesson. The first is that the word “glory” means to “clothe with splendor” In other words, Jesus was glorified by becoming God, the Fathers, perfect sin sacrifice on the behalf of sin-filled people.
2 Corinthians 5:21 says it like this, “God made Him who had no sin to be sin (or to bare our sin) for us, so that in Him we might become (or be clothed) in the righteousness of God.
Another definition that I wanted to bring out here is that the word, “glorify” means to acknowledge the true worth of someone or something, for the purpose of offering praise for or to it.
In this sense, Jesus knowing His hour had come, the time to complete His earthly ministry, His ultimate purpose for coming in other words was about to end. Knowing all that lay ahead for Him, He turns to His Father, His only help before He goes to the cross. Jesus’ prayer is that His Father be glorified through Jesus willing submission to lay His life down on the behalf of the lost sinners of the world.
Jesus recognizes before His Father and the witnessing eleven disciples that God the Father had indeed given Jesus authority over all people. Jesus has all power and authority over life and death. His desire was in alignment with the will of God that all who to come to Him, might not only know God through Him, but also recognize that He is the only true God.
You see, it’s one thing to know “of” someone or to know someone personally. For example if I were to ask you, “Do you know, “Billy Graham?” You might say to me, “No Terri, I don’t know Billy Graham, but I do know of him.”
A lot of people know of or have heard of the person of Jesus Christ and yet many as the passage in Matthew 7:21-23 pointed out, refuse to engage in a personal relationship with Him and therefore not only do they not really know Him, He does not recognize them as His own.
It is true that Jesus came for all people, and yet not all people will come to Him. You see, eternal life found in Jesus Christ and Jesus Christ alone is not mere head knowledge. Knowledge of who Jesus is or what His Word teaches about Him. Because even the Devil has this kind of knowledge. It’s knowing whom we place our faith or belief in and then living out His Word and Words in our own daily lives!
Terri Hamman
Faith & Fitness Coach