John 17:1

 Read John 17, focus is on verse 1; Sing: We Long for that Day

John 17:1 Jesus prays to the Father. There is so much packed into this one chapter. So much. Leading up to so much of what is yet to come in the trial, and crucifixion of Christ, and then the Resurrection.  The prayer follows the truths taught by Jesus the past few chapters. Every day at the bottom I will be linking to sermons on this chapter. 

This prayer differs from the Lord's prayer we see in Matthew 6. It should not be confused. In the Lord's prayer we are seeing Jesus teaching the disciples how to pray. Now, we are getting to hear the Lord petition His Father. We are privy to an incredibly holy moment as the Lord talks to His Lord. Woah. There are some incredibly profound truths that come out. We see Jesus reference His relationship with His Father as it was "before the earth was formed" and we hear Jesus pray for those who are yet to believe, meaning a prayer that still is being answered today, for you and I and those yet to come to Him. 

Part 1: Jesus prayers for Himself and His mission. 

This might seem funny to think that Jesus is praying for Himself, as He is God. But here we see a beautiful portion of His time on earth, He was fully God and Fully Man. He is crying out to His Father for what is about to be the climax of human history to this point, Jesus dying on the cross. 

And in this holy moment, He says, "Father." Jesus actually first lifts up his eyes towards heaven. There is a moment, there is reverence, He is turning His attention to God and begins His prayer with this beautiful intimate term, Father. 

Today, pastors and teachers are destroying this moment. I don't mean that lightly. We are killing this joyful terminology, this hope, this relationship, and trivializing it. I hear pastors on the pulpit using words like..."pops" or "Hey Dad," where they are taking what is a grace given relationship; and making it this loose familiar one. Jesus calls God the Father. Jesus, through His atoning work on the cross paid a price that now we are adopted as sons and daughters into the kingdom. God is our Father, we are His children. We too can call Him, Father, but it is solely because of the Son. Not anything that we did to merit this adoption. 

He calls us child.  This is remarkable. It makes me want to cry from amazement, joy and humility. So when people come in false teaching narratives that destroy this, or minimize this; we quickly loose the sanctity of it. We lose reverence for our Father. Its how we can quickly slip into feelings of entitlement, feeling Jesus owes us anything. Well, I prayed about it...so He should... or I don't understand why I am not getting what I want.... or I want it now. We forget that we are children of the Holy One. The Creator of the Universe. The One who set the stars in place and knows each one by name. The One who knew us before we were formed in our mother's womb, the One who knows the number of hairs on our head and length of our days. THIS, is our Father. And He is our Father because Jesus paid the price for our sins. 

So, as Christ now prays to His Father for Himself, and the mission at hand...we too, can pray to our Father today for ourselves, because of what has been done for us. WOAH. Matthew Henry writes: 

• 1. He prays to God as a Father: He lifted up his eyes, and said, Father. Note, As prayer is to be made to God only, so it is our duty in prayer to eye him as a Father, and to call him our Father. All that have the Spirit of adoption are taught to cry Abba, Father, Rom. 8:15; Gal. 4:6. If God be our Father, we have liberty of access to him, ground of confidence in him, and great expectations from him. Christ calls him here holy Father, (v. 11) and righteous Father, v. 25. For it will be of great use to us in prayer, both for direction and for encouragement, to call God as we hope to find him.

Finally, Jesus says, "glorify thy Son, that thy Son may glorify thee." My commentary reads, "The highest goal of the Father and Son (and Spirit 16:4) is to make known each other's glory."  Christ's ultimate goal is to glorify His Father.

Today, can we say the same of ourselves? Is my ultimate goal to glorify the Father? Westminster Shorter Catechism question #1 What is man's primary purpose? Answer: man's primary purpose is to glorify God and enjoy Him forever. May we re-purpose our lives according to His will. <3

John 17- Pastor Josh Scherrer