Do be seated. And again, if you've got a Black Church Bible, turn to page 903, John chapter 17.
! John chapter 17. And we're going to spend the next three weeks in this prayer.
I'm preaching from just one chapter. It's in some ways easier to get into a chapter than it is to get into a whole book of the Bible.
So three weeks in John 17.
It's actually the Lord's Prayer.
It's not the Lord's Prayer we often pray.
Because the Lord Jesus could never have prayed what we often call the Lord's Prayer.
Jesus did not need to ask for the forgiveness of his sins, did he?
But you and I do. That, in many ways, is the disciples' prayer, our Father in heaven.
But this is the Lord's Prayer in John 17.
And it's really holy ground. It's, in many ways, the kind of inner sanctum.
John Knox, the father of Presbyterianism, the Scottish reformer in the 16th century,
he said that the Lord used this passage to bring him to faith in the Lord Jesus.
And apparently, when John Knox was in the last illness, the last few weeks of his life,
he kept asking people who were visiting him,
can you read to me John 17?
He said that to his wife, read me that scripture where I first cast my anchor.
And what I want you to do over these next three weeks,
as the church in IPC Ealing,
is really to cast your anchor in John 17.
If you look at verse 13,
Jesus is speaking to his father there,
but he's deliberately speaking so as to be overheard.
I'm coming to you,
but I say these things while I'm still in the world,
so that they may have,
my joy fulfilled in themselves.
And so as we get into John 17,
it almost feels like we're intruding,
listening in on Jesus' prayer,
but it's not an intrusion,
because Jesus is inviting you and I to overheard,
eavesdrop on this conversation,
this private conversation between a son and his father.
It's overwhelming, really.
We're not spectators.
We find ourselves being drawn into it.
I was in Paddington Station the other day,
and I was standing in the middle of the concourse.
It was very full.
It was about eight o'clock in the morning,
and the Bakeloo line was shut.
And suddenly,
a brass band started playing all around me.
I didn't know what was going on.
And I found myself,
along with a couple of others,
right in the middle of this brass band.
And I was drawn into the music.
I didn't kind of join in, you know.
But I wasn't just listening to it.
I was part of it.
I was there.
And that's what we find with John 17.
As we hear it,
suddenly we find ourselves drawn into it,
into this most intimate relationship
of the father and the son.
The father says,
I'm coming to you.
Father, he says,
I'm coming to you,
and I'm saying these things while I'm in the world,
so that these people who hear my prayer may have joy.
There's a sense in which we're not spectators,
we're participating.
So there's three sections,
and you can see them.
Verses one to five,
he prays for himself.
And verses six to 19,
he prays for his disciples.
And in verse 20 to the end,
he prays for those who are going to come
to believe in him
through the witness of the disciples.
So it's the night before he's about to die.
It's the night before the cross,
and he is thinking about 21st century healing.
Isn't that amazing?
They're about to crucify him.
They're about to execute him
by the most cruel form of punishment
devised by man,
and his thoughts are to the ends of the earth.
And he is praying for them to believe in him
through the testimony of his apostles.
You've got it on your lap.
And that's what the Bible is.
It is the testimony of the apostles.
And there are people from all over the world
who are coming to believe in the Lord Jesus today.
According to the stats,
56,000 people will become Christians
in China alone today.
Through the testimony of the disciples.
All because of the prayer of Jesus.
And so this is something actually really profound.
And we're going to look this morning at verses 1 to 5
where Jesus prays for himself.
Doesn't that strike you a little bit strange, doesn't it?
Don't you feel a little bit awkward about that?
Or even embarrassed about that?
We've been schooled, haven't we,
not to put ourselves first?
But Jesus does.
He prays for himself.
I remember hearing about a young lady,
I think she was middle-aged.
She was in a church.
She was desperate to get married.
But she didn't want to pray for herself.
So she prayed,
please send my mother-in-law a son-in-law.
Please send my mother a son-in-law.
I've ruined the joke there, haven't I?
Please send my mother a son-in-law.
It's a rubbish joke, isn't it?
But we can be a little bit embarrassed by that.
And we can feel awkward, can't we,
about praying for ourselves?
But Jesus prays for himself.
What does he pray for?
Look, that's even more embarrassing, doesn't it?
Look at these verses.
Father, glorify your son.
Verse 5.
And now, Father, glorify me in your own presence
with the glory that I had with you
before the world existed.
And now, Father, glorify me in your own presence
there's only one request that Jesus is making for himself.
It comes up five times in five verses.
He prays for glory.
Father, glorify me.
That's his prayer.
That's the longing of his heart
as he goes to the cross.
Father, glorify me.
That is a little bit embarrassing, isn't it?
Is that the sort of prayer that anyone should pray?
Lord, puff me up so that everyone will see
how important I am.
We don't like leaders, do we,
who puff themselves up.
Power and glory almost always goes to people's heads.
And so what do you make of this prayer?
Father, glorify me.
Has Jesus become some kind of megalomaniac?
This carpenter from Nazareth
who spent 30 years fixing coffee tables and chairs.
Father, glorify me.
It sounds, doesn't it, so ego megalomaniac.
So self-indulgent.
What about if I was to pray this morning?
What about if I just prayed,
Father, glorify me.
Glorify Paul Levy.
Let's stop meeting in this building on Drayton Green.
We'll knock it down.
We'll build a great cathedral
and let's call it St. Paul's.
And you'd think he's lost it, wouldn't you?
That's what Jesus is praying.
He's praying that his name would be known
throughout all the world.
That the disciples, through their testimony,
that their testimony would spread
to every generation and every culture
and people all around the world
would find out about him
until the end of time.
Father, glorify me.
Glorify your son.
Listen to these words from the French philosopher Rousseau.
The person whose thinking led to the French Revolution.
Listen to what he said.
He said,
The person who can love me as I can love
is still to be born.
No one ever had more talent for loving.
I was born to be the best friend that ever existed.
Posterity will honor me.
I rejoice in myself.
My consolation lies in my esteem.
He believed that every town in France
should build a statue in honor to him.
It's obvious, isn't it?
His mother never said no to him
when he was a little boy.
But we recoil, don't we,
from such self-glorification.
It doesn't seem right to us.
Although we indulge in it ourselves
from time to time,
instinctively we know it's inappropriate
for human beings.
And yet Jesus says,
I want to be glorified, Father.
Glorify me.
How can Jesus get away with it,
but you can't?
Why is it a good thing for Jesus
to be glorified and not me?
Well, I've got two points.
Firstly, because of who he is.
And secondly, because of what he's accomplished.
How can Jesus get away with it?
How is it good for Jesus to be glorified?
Well, first of all, because of who he is.
And look at verse one.
When Jesus spoke in these words,
he lifted up his eyes to heaven
and he said,
Father, the hour has come.
Glorify your son.
And then in verse five.
And now, Father, glorify me
in your own presence
with the glory that I had with you
before the world existed.
Can you see what Jesus is saying there?
He's saying,
I am no ordinary human being.
The person speaking these words
is the preexistent son of God.
And that puts him into a completely
different category, doesn't it?
Let me try and explain this.
I was and I am useless at maths.
Awful.
If you know me,
I'm innumerate, pretty much.
Imagine someone like me
who is hopeless at maths
and science and physics.
Imagine at the end of this year,
it is announced that Paul Levy
will receive the Nobel Prize for physics.
It wouldn't glorify me, would it?
It would humiliate me.
Because at some point,
it wouldn't take long
for someone to realize
that they've made a huge mistake.
And I wouldn't be glorified by that,
would I?
I'd be mortified.
Because you would be doing
something to me outwardly
that doesn't correspond
to what I am like inwardly.
Inwardly, when it comes to physics
and maths,
I'm no help to the kids
in the homework.
It would be totally inappropriate
for me to receive
the Nobel Prize for physics.
But when Albert Einstein
was given the Nobel Prize for physics,
that's quite different, isn't it?
That's totally appropriate.
It's a public recognition
and outward recognition
of what he is inwardly.
He was a brilliant scientist.
And so when Jesus prays,
Father, glorify your son,
he is saying,
Lord, Father,
show the world
who I really am.
So if I pray,
Father, glorify me,
what I really mean
is disguise who I really am.
Because if you really knew
who I was,
if you really knew
what I was like
and what my heart is like,
you wouldn't sit here
listening to me this morning.
You see,
when we say,
Father, glorify me,
we are really praying,
Lord,
pull a veil
over what I'm really like
because I don't want
what I'm really like
on the inside
to be put out there.
Disguise what I'm like.
But when Jesus prays,
Father, glorify your son,
he's saying,
Father,
I want people
to know
outwardly
and see who I really am.
Take away the veil.
And that's what
the transfiguration was,
wasn't it?
Do you remember?
Jesus goes up
on a mountain
with Peter
and James
and John
and God
draws aside
the curtains
and they get a glimpse
really of who Jesus is.
This carpenter
from Nazareth,
just for a moment,
suddenly they see
his dazzling glory.
They see the reality
of who he is.
And there's a voice
that booms from heaven
and it says,
this is my son
with whom I'm well pleased.
And just for a moment,
the father
pulls aside
the veil
and glorifies
his son.
And what he saw
was that glory
that he had
with the father
before the world began
and it just radiated
out of him.
Just for a moment,
the glory
shone through.
And so what I'm saying
is what is totally
inappropriate
for you and me
is entirely
appropriate
for him
because he is
the pre-existent
son of God.
And that means this,
he is altogether
different from us.
You and I
were created.
The son of God
is uncreated.
There was a program,
I can't remember
what the question was,
but you had to
kind of identify
something.
And the contestants
on this show,
they had to identify
either an object
or a person
or a place,
I think it was.
And the first question
was,
are you animal,
vegetable,
or mineral?
Do you remember that?
And so in asking
that question,
are you animal,
vegetable,
or mineral?
You're acknowledging
there are different
modes of existence.
There are different
levels of existence,
different orders
of being.
And so if this
afternoon I go
and pick a bunch
of flowers
from our garden
and I offer them
to you,
you wouldn't take
that in the wrong
way, would you?
You wouldn't phone
the police
and accuse me
of murder
just because I picked
up a bunch
of flowers.
Because picking
flowers from a garden
is perfectly
acceptable,
isn't it?
It's perfectly
acceptable to pick
flowers from a garden
and decorate a room.
You wouldn't say,
how inappropriate
is that?
Of course not.
It's what flowers
are for.
It's why God
created flowers
for you to enjoy,
to create joy
and colour
and life
into our existence.
So it's quite
appropriate for you
to decorate your home
with flowers.
Or you've got a pet
and you're training
it to behave
or you should be
training it to behave.
Let's say it's a sheep
dog, isn't it?
And the farmer
trains the sheep
dog.
Or a...
It's not a blind
dog, is it?
A guide dog.
And the dog
has to be trained
and go through
kind of rigorous
training.
And so they're
training for the
sheep dog
farmer,
they're training
for the guide dog
and nobody goes
to the trainer
and says,
that is so
egotistical of you.
How dare you do that?
You expect your dog
to perform tricks?
You expect your dog
to work for you?
To be a guard dog?
To be a sheep dog?
You're a megalomaniac,
you are.
No one's going to say
that.
Why?
Because,
believe it or not,
you are on a different
level to your dog.
And you and I
are on a different
level from flowers
in the garden
and pets in our home
or the lunch
on your table.
The distance,
metaphysically speaking,
between you and your dog
or the flowers
in your garden
and you,
it is measurable.
It is appreciable.
There is an appreciable
difference
because we are all
part of creation.
But the difference
between you and Jesus
is off the scale.
Altogether,
he is the uncreated one.
He is the pre-existence one.
And so when he says,
Father, glorify me
with the glory I had
before the world existed,
remember who he is.
Remember that in Hebrews
it says about him,
the sun is the radiance
of God's glory,
the exact expression
of his nature.
And God's angels
all worship him.
Do you see?
And if the angels
worship him,
so much do
because there is nothing
inappropriate
about worshipping Jesus.
He is the pre-existent one
and because he is
the pre-existent one,
Jesus does not exist
for you.
You exist for him.
You and I,
we long to be glorified.
We've got a craving
for the limelight.
We've got a need
for recognition
and admiration.
That's part of what it is
being a human being.
But Jesus has no such need.
Jesus does not need you
to worship him.
When he prays this prayer,
Father, glorify your son,
it's not because he's kind of
got something psychologically
wrong with him.
He's got some need in him.
He's got a craving
for recognition
that needs to be met.
No, this is not
what it's about.
A.W. Tozer
wrote a little book.
And he said this
in this little book.
He said,
the reason that God
made man
in his image
was that he might
appreciate God
and admire
and adore
and worship him.
So that God
may not be a picture,
so to speak,
hanging in a gallery
with no one
to admire him.
I think that's a
brilliant way of putting it.
So that he may not
be a picture
in a gallery
with no one
to admire him.
Do you see
what he's saying?
So think of those
great pieces of art
that are not on display.
They're hidden away
in some vault.
They're no lesser
works of art,
are they?
For not being displayed.
But it's such a shame.
It's a shame
for a glorious
work of art
to be hidden
from the public.
Gathering dust
in the vaults.
Why shouldn't it
be on display?
Such a work of art
ought to be on display.
I've told you
about it before.
We've got this thing
in our house.
There's Aunt Layla's
china.
One of Claire's aunts.
And it comes out
once a year
on Christmas Day.
What's the point
in having a dinner service
taking up room
in the house
that never sees
the light of day
apart from once
on a Christmas Day?
I said to me,
well,
if you had kids
like ours,
you wouldn't use it
every day.
It's too precious,
isn't it,
to get broken.
I want to say,
well,
better to break the thing
and use it
than sit in the cupboard.
Beautiful things
are meant to be used.
And so this is the point
that A.W. Chose is making.
He's saying,
God doesn't need us.
He doesn't need you
to come here on a Sunday
and worship him.
Don't think that.
He wants you to.
He calls you to,
but he doesn't need you to.
There's nothing
psychologically wrong
with God.
He's not got a craving
for recognition.
He is just simply
the glorious one
who ought to be worshipped
and ought to be enjoyed.
And that's the reason
why you were made.
The reason why
you are,
you exist,
is because God
created you
to glorify
and enjoy him.
And so this prayer
of Jesus
is not out of place
at all.
It's not egotistical.
Jesus is the preexistent
son of God
and he deserves
our worship.
I wrote a chapter
in a book once
about Jeff Thomas,
Barbara's husband
who was a minister
for 50 years
in Aberystwyth.
I was reading it again
this week.
Something like reading
your own articles,
is there?
And one of the students
that I interviewed
in that article
said that Jeff Thomas
in his ministry,
in the way that he spoke
Sunday by Sunday,
he always preached
the Lord Jesus.
And he said
he could remember
a particular sermon
one week
when Jeff said,
on one occasion,
I remember him saying,
I was talking on the door
to a Jehovah Witness
this week
and at one point
the JW said
something about Jesus.
Caused the man
on my door
to reply,
oh but we mustn't
put him on a pedestal,
must we?
Oh but we must.
We must.
We must put Jesus
on a pedestal.
He's different.
Father, glorify your son.
So first of all,
as Jesus prays this prayer,
it is because of who he is.
But you notice secondly,
and the thing that really
comes out strongly,
is because of what
he's accomplished.
Look at verses 4 and 5.
Verse 4 says,
I glorified you on earth,
that's what I've done,
having accomplished
the work that you
gave me to do.
So Jesus was a man
who lived according
to God's will.
And now Father,
glorify me in your own
presence with the glory
I had with you.
Before the world existed.
He speaks about
completing the work
that the Father
had given him to do.
Look at verse 1.
He says,
Father,
the hour has come.
Literally,
the hour has arrived.
The time is now.
It's one of the big themes
of John's Gospel.
It's something that runs
right the way through.
So in John 2,
Jesus goes to a wedding
where the wine has run out.
And what does Jesus say
to his mother
when his mother comes
and says,
can you sort this out?
Jesus says,
my hour has not yet come.
I'm at a wedding,
but it's not my wedding.
The time has not yet come
for him to go to the cross
and shed his blood
for his bride.
In chapter 2 and verse 4,
he says,
my time has not yet come.
Chapter 7, verse 30.
When the temple police
come to arrest him
and they can't
and they have to go back
with their tail
between their legs
and confess
that they weren't able
to arrest him.
And Jesus says,
the reason why
they weren't able
to arrest me
is because my time
has not yet come.
Or chapter 8,
in verse 20,
when he's teaching
in the temple
and no one has seized him
because his hour
has not yet come.
And then in 1223,
the Greeks come
looking for him
and we're told,
Jesus eventually says,
the hour has now come.
It's time.
The hour has come
for the Son of Man
to be glorified
and he leaves us
in no doubt
what he's talking about.
He says,
unless a grain of wheat
falls to the ground
and dies,
it remains by itself.
But if it dies,
the seed produces
a huge crop.
And he says,
now is the time
for that to happen.
My soul is exceedingly troubled.
Father,
save me from this hour.
It's for this reason
I've come into this world.
So Father,
glorify your Son.
And then a voice
comes from heaven,
I've glorified it
and I will glorify it again.
Why?
Because Jesus is glorified
the hour that the grain of wheat
falls into the ground
and dies.
The hour,
the moment
when Jesus is glorified
is that hour
that fills him with dread.
And so he cries out
in the Garden of Gethsemane,
Father,
save me from this hour.
The hour is the time
when he is going to be lifted up
for the sins of his people.
And so in our culture today,
we're trying to edit
Jesus Christ
out of history,
aren't we?
We no longer call it
B.C.,
before Christ,
and A.D.,
in the year of our Lord.
We call it the year
of the common era.
They won't say
before Christ
and A.D.
because they don't want
to mention his name.
The hour,
which is
the hour that is
at the center
of human history,
the world wants
to deny it.
And so for the Christian church,
it is this hour,
it is his death
that we should celebrate.
It's the most important hour.
It is the hour
that has come,
and Jesus says,
for the Son
to be glorified.
Father,
the hour has come.
You see what's happening?
He is embracing
the cross.
He's saying,
Father,
take me to the cross
even though everything
in me shrinks from it.
And do you see
how committed he is to it?
Look at verse 4.
He speaks of it
as if it's already happened,
even though it's
24 hours off
into the future.
He says,
having accomplished
the work that you
gave me to do,
it's a done deal
as far as Jesus is concerned.
There's no going back.
I read somewhere
about a Scripture Union camp.
It's called
Camp Bevington.
And it's named
after a Royal Naval
Chaplaincy,
Chaplain,
the name of the guy
was called
Ronald Bevington.
He was a chaplain
in World War II
on HMS Perth.
It went down
in the Battle
of the Java Sea
in 1942.
And Ronald Bevington
was on an
overcrowded
life raft.
There were others
clamoring to get on board
and Ronald said,
apparently,
according to the article,
I'll get out.
and you get in
because I know
where I'm going.
Ronald Bevington
was listed
as lost at sea,
never seen again.
He drowned.
If he hadn't done that,
we would never
have heard of him.
I wouldn't be
mentioning his name.
There would be
no Scripture Union camp
called the Bevington Camp.
In laying down
his life,
he glorified himself.
and he brought
glory to God.
And so how much more
does Jesus bring glory
to himself
and glory to God
by laying down
his life
for the sins
of the world?
Do you remember
what the writer
of the Hebrews says?
The writer of the Hebrews
says,
for the joy
that was set
before him,
he endured
the cross.
What made
Jesus
go through
with his death
on the cross?
It was
the joy
of bringing glory
to the Father.
It was the joy
of seeing people
believe in him.
It was the joy
of seeing people
in every culture
throughout time
being saved,
being rescued
as a result
of what he's done.
Father,
the hour has come.
If it were possible,
save me from this hour,
but I'm going to go
through that.
Not my will,
but your will be done.
I don't know the date,
but pretty soon,
isn't it,
sometime next year,
they will take
Prince Charles
to Westminster Abbey
and they will crown him
king.
And they won't take him
to Pentonville Prison
and chop off his head.
But that is what
they did to Jesus.
His crucifixion
is in fact
his coronation.
The moment
of his humiliation
is the moment
of his glory.
Jesus and his finished work,
it's the best news
in the world.
Father,
I've completed the work.
And unless
you have trusted
in the finished,
completed work
of Jesus,
you can never
have assurance.
You can never
have confidence
about this life
and the world
to come.
You can never
know you've done enough.
There's always
something more
to do,
something else.
But the good news
of the Bible
is Jesus says,
Father,
I've done it.
I've completed
the work
that you gave me
to do.
It is finished.
And so that is
why the church
should be obsessed
with worshipping Jesus.
Because of who he is.
Who is he?
He is the pre-existent
son of God
who made us.
But also because
of what he's done.
And he's done
I remember seeing
a church I grew up in
and there was
another church
over the road
that had a
poster on it
and wayside pulpits
and kind of cheesy
posters that
people would drive
past.
And one of them
was,
read the Bible
free gift
inside.
Read the Bible
free gift
inside.
Can you see verse 2?
Since you've given
him authority
over all flesh
to give eternal
life to all
whom you've given
him.
Romans 6.23
tells us that
the wages of sin
if I keep living
the way that I live
the wages that I get
at the end
is death.
But the free gift
of God is eternal
life through Jesus
Christ our Lord.
Eternal life
is not like
chewing gum
is it?
where you kind
of chew it
and you chew it
and in the end
it loses its
flavour but you
keep on chewing.
No, look at
verse 3.
This is eternal
life.
It is to know
him.
Remember what
Jesus said.
Jesus said in
John 10,
I have come to
give you life
and to give it
to you in
abundance.
And so eternal
life is not
kind of enduring
forever.
But knowledge
of the one
who is
everlasting.
It's not so
much the
quantity
but the
quality.
You know
what it's like
when you're
at the dentist.
Time drags.
When you go
to the
child's
Christmas
concert
and you
go to
watch your
kid's
performance
and you
say to
the person
how long
is this
going to
go on
for?
And they
say oh
forever.
Forever.
So what
heaven will
be like?
When he
died on
the cross
the Lord
Jesus died
to bring
us into
a relationship
with the
one who
is everlasting
and that
is why
you've
been made.
Back in
the garden
right at the
start of the
Bible in
Genesis 2
and 3
in the
cool of
the day
right in
the garden
Adam
walked with
God.
He knew
God.
It's a
beautiful picture
of what you
were made
for of a
relationship
with God.
And Adam
when he
sins and
when he
falls that
relationship
is broken
and death
comes and
sin is
the wages
of death
is the
wages of
our sin.
And the
man and
the woman
they hide
from God
because the
relationship
is broken
and there's
biological
life but
the spiritual
life is
gone.
There's no
eternal
life because
sin has
broken that
relationship but
Jesus has
come and
he's come to
restore that
relationship.
He died
just for
the unjust
to bring you
to church.
No.
He died
just for
the unjust
to bring you
to God.
To restore
a living
relationship
with the
God who
made you.
And so
Jesus says
to me
Father I
brought you
glory on
earth by
completing the
work that
you gave
me to
do.
It's
accomplished.
It's
finished.
Let me
finish
with a
description of
a funeral.
It's a
humanist
funeral.
The author
says this
one of the
five speakers
summed up
my brother-in-law
Mark's brief
40 years
with his
favorite line
from his
favorite song
from his
favorite band
Radiohead.
If I could
be what you
wanted all
the time.
If I
could be
what you
wanted all
the time.
The sad
fact is
and all of
us at the
funeral knew
it Mark
didn't come
anywhere near
achieving that
and nor did
the rest of
us.
As the
songwriter
acknowledges
with the
line if I
could be
if only
it's a
desperate
line.
If only
I could
be what
you wanted
all the
time.
It's such
a contrast
to the
message of
the Bible.
If only
I could
be all
that God
wanted me
to be
but I
can't
and neither
can you.
But the
message of
the Bible
is thank
God
Jesus
was
all that
the Father
wanted him
to be.
Let's
pray.