Episode Transcript
[00:00:24] Speaker A: Hello, I'm Josh.
[00:00:24] Speaker B: And I'm Gabriel.
[00:00:26] Speaker A: And today on reading the Gospel, we are studying the event Jesus intercessory prayer. This is found in the book of John, chapter 17. We'll be reading the whole chapter beginning in verse one. Follow along with us in your Bibles.
[00:00:42] Speaker B: When Jesus had spoken these words, he lifted up his eyes to heaven and said, father, the hour has come. Glorify your Son, that the Son may glorify you, since you have given him authority over all flesh to give eternal life to all whom you have given him.
And this is eternal life that they may know you, the only true God and Jesus Christ whom you have sent.
I glorified you on earth, have accomplished the work that you have gave me to do.
And now, Father, glorify me in your own presence. With the glory that I had with you before the world existed.
[00:01:29] Speaker A: I have manifested your name to the people whom you gave me out of the world. Yours they were, and you gave them to me, and they have kept your word. Now they know that everything that you have given me is from you. For I have given them the words that you gave me, and they have received them and have come to know in truth that I came from you. And they have believed that you sent me. I am praying for them. I am not praying for the world, but for those whom you have given me. For they are yours, all mine are yours, and yours are mine. And I'm glorified in them. And I am no longer in the world. But they are in the world. And I am coming to you, Holy Father. Keep them in your name which you have given me, that they may be one, even as we are one. While I was with them, I kept them in your name which you have given me. I have guarded them and not one of them has been lost, except the Son of destruction, that the Scriptures might be fulfilled. But now I am coming to you. And these things I speak in the world that they may have my joy fulfilled in themselves. I have given them your word and the world has hated them because they are not of the world, just as I am not of the world. I do not ask that you take them out of the world, but that you keep them from the evil one. They are not of the world, just as I am not of the world. Sanctify them in your truth. Your word is truth. As you sent me into the world, so I have sent them into the world. And for their sake I consecrate myself that they may also be sanctified. In truth.
[00:03:27] Speaker B: I do not ask for these only, but also for those who will believe in me through their word, that they may also be one, just as you, Father, are in me and I in you, that they also may be in us, so that the world may believe that you have sent me. The glory that you have given me, I have given to them that they may be one, even as we are I in them, and you in me, that they may become perfectly one, so that the world may know that you sent me and loved me even as you loved me. Father, I desire that they also, whom you have given me, may be with me where I am to see my glory that you have given me, because you loved me before the foundation of the world.
O righteous Father, even though the world does not know you, I know you. And these know that you have sent me. I may know to them your name. And I will continue to make it known that the love with which youh have loved me may be in them and I in them.
[00:04:45] Speaker A: So this chapter here can be broken down into three parts. This is Jesus prayer. This event takes place probably as a continuation of the previous chapters. Jesus has just talked about the coming of the Holy Spirit, and the disciples have said, we now believe. It's clear to us. And now Jesus goes into this prayer.
And the very first section of this prayer talks about the glorification of Jesus. Then the second section talks, is focused on the disciples, and the third is a prayer for the world. So let's talk about the first section, this glorification of Jesus. What does glorification mean? Or what does it mean to be glorified?
[00:05:37] Speaker B: In this context, the glory is somehow related to the character of God and to the revelation of that character.
We see this in verse 4. In the second part, Jesus said, and this is Thursday night, before he died on the cross. The next day, I have accomplished the work that you gave me to do.
But we connect this to the first part of the same verse. I glorified you on earth.
[00:06:09] Speaker A: Yeah.
[00:06:09] Speaker B: So Jesus Christ revealed the character of the Father. And this theme is being repeated a couple of times more. And that is the work that God gave him. And this is how Jesus Christ glorified the Father.
In fact, in this chapter, Jesus Christ calls God Father seven times, five times, just simply Father, and once Holy Father, and once Righteous Father. And the purpose of Jesus Christ was to reveal God to us as a loving Father, as an opposite to how Satan wants to portray God.
[00:06:49] Speaker A: And it goes larger than that. You're absolutely right. But it also goes to Satan's accusation that God's not fair that people left to their own can't follow God's ways. And Jesus has come to show that you can. You can do good. And God's government is the right way. And so this is also a view for the universe to see how sin interacts with righteousness.
I love this verse, verse three.
You know, John 3:16 is probably the most famous verse in the Bible, but I like this one. And this is life eternal, that they know you, the only true God, and Jesus Christ whom you have sent.
It doesn't say, and this is life eternal that you obey God, that you are right, that you are perfect. It's that we know, you know. Our job is to know God and Jesus, to get to know them more and love them. And as we do this, everything else falls into place.
[00:07:58] Speaker B: And to know his love, to know his character, is to live it out in our lives and by words and by example. We pass on that knowledge to the disciples, of the disciples and until our generation today and the next generation of disciples.
[00:08:17] Speaker A: So the second section, the manifestation of Jesus to his disciples that God has given him disciples. And you get a lot of this. I've given them. You have me. There's this big section in there. But basically what Jesus is saying is, father, you gave me these people and I have kept them, I have taught them, I have shown them. Now as I go back to heaven, please take over and continue the work that has been done. Is that fair to say?
[00:08:51] Speaker B: Yes. And this is the connection to the previous episode, to the second part of chapter 16.
When the holy Spirit will continue the work of Jesus Christ. He is another helper or another teacher or another comforter, because Jesus Christ was always the first one.
So the Holy Spirit continues work from inside out in our lives. The work that was initiated by Jesus Christ while he was in person in the body among us.
[00:09:27] Speaker A: Then we get into Jesus in the world, but then not in the world anymore. He's leaving the world. Right. His focus is turning back now. Does Jesus have work he's doing here today? Yes, but his ministry is focused in.
[00:09:45] Speaker B: Heaven as our intercessor, let's say, is located in heaven. Yeah, sounds that a little bit better.
[00:09:52] Speaker A: He's located in heaven as our high priest. Excuse me, exactly where he ministers for us as the high priest did in the Old Testament.
[00:10:00] Speaker B: And at the same time, Jesus dwells, as we saw in chapter 15, that's through the Spirit. Jesus Christ dwells in us, makes his home in us, but not in a personal way, but being represented by the invisible presence of The Holy Spirit.
[00:10:16] Speaker A: Yeah. And then Revelation 3:20. Behold, I stand at the door and knock that he wants to come in and commune with us. And. And so, yes, he has a presence here, but he's moving his job from physically walking on the earth with the disciples to going to be with the Father and working for us from heaven.
Then the third part is this prayer for the world Jesus has prayed for. The disciples prayed that God would fulfill Scripture through them and protect them and. And be with them. And now he's asking for the world, all who believe in me through their word, that they may all be one, just as you, Father, are in me, and I in you. This is a prayer for us, those of us who live today, that Jesus is praying that we receive the same blessing and protection and God's presence in our lives as the disciples had.
[00:11:13] Speaker B: It's very interesting how in the second part, Jesus says, I do not pray for the world, but he prays for the world in waves of discipleship. So the disciples, in the time of Jesus, trained by Jesus himself, will train other disciples and other disciples, and in this way, the whole world will hear the good news, the word of God.
[00:11:37] Speaker A: So we learn about Jesus primarily through other people.
It's not that we picked up a Bible one day and started reading it and found all this. We. We were either raised in a church or we heard about it from someone else or went to some meetings. We. We hear about Jesus through others.
And those people heard about Jesus by and large, through others.
[00:12:04] Speaker B: And this is faith comes by hearing.
[00:12:07] Speaker A: Yeah. For the. Paul says, throughout history, this is how most people have heard is by a disciple who came before them that we have passed down from generation to generation the beliefs that we received. Now, the Bible is that anvil against which all truths are tested, that we look to the Bible for truth. And the Christians, once they hear about Jesus, they come and they study the Word and find him there.
But this discipleship process, this being a witness for the next generation is a process, is a part of being a Christian.
[00:12:48] Speaker B: We hear the word of God from others first, but after a while, and this is what we are doing through this podcast, we help you and everyone else to hear the Word of God directly from God. We give you the tools so you can open the Bible, you can read it, and you can hear the voice of the Holy Spirit speaking to you, and the words of Jesus Christ becoming more alive.
And this combination, maybe the balance, which is different from, you know, society to society, culture to culture, is hearing from someone and at the same time hearing Directly from God and from the Holy Spirit.
[00:13:29] Speaker A: Yeah. And, you know, as we come to the word of God, we shouldn't be afraid to test, to try to, you know, to learn new things, to challenge our beliefs. If, if someone's told you something about the Bible or something that we have said on this podcast, you're. We don't want you just to say, yep, that's right, I believe it fully. We want you to go back and to wrestle with the Bible and say, is that true?
Know, these are things I've been taught, these are things I believe, but are they true?
And this is what the Holy Spirit will do. He will guide us and help us understand what the Word says.
And so I am very thankful for Jesus prayer here. And he gave this example. You know, we, we say the Lord's Prayer, Our Father who art in heaven, you know, Jesus teaching the disciples how to pray when they asked him. But for me, this is the, the, the real Lord's Prayer. This is the, the true, you know, the secret knowledge you can have take home with you that when someone says, what's the Lord's Prayer? Take them to John 17 and say, this is how Jesus prayed for his disciples.
And so I'm so thankful that Jesus prayed this prayer for us.
[00:14:41] Speaker B: And those two prayers complement each other.
[00:14:43] Speaker A: Yes.
[00:14:44] Speaker B: The first one is for you, the Lord's Prayer in Matthew chapter six, that you grow, you connect with God. And John chapter 17 is the second part. What happens when you grow and all this knowledge is being revealed to others and eventually goes back to God? And it is the glory of God that he is looking for, that we honor who he is and we glorify his name in front of, you know, everyone.
[00:15:17] Speaker A: Let us pray.
Father God, it is so good to see your hand working in our lives to, to change us, to make us into your creation. And, and I thank you, Father, that you've revealed yourself through godly people around us.
Now I pray that we will be driven back to study the Bible, that we may accurately represent you to the next generation, to those that you would have us be examples to.
May we be ambassadors for you in Jesus name. Amen.
[00:15:54] Speaker B: Amen.
