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JOHN’S GOSPEL…THE PRAYER – 24

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“After Jesus said this, he looked toward heaven and prayed: “Father, the hour has come. Glorify your Son, that your Son may glorify you…And now, Father, glorify me in your presence with the glory I had with you before the world began…”

“I pray for them. I am not praying for the world, but for those you have given me, for they are yours. 

Holy Father, protect them by the power of your name, the name you gave me, so that they may be one as we are one. My prayer is not that you take them out of the world but that you protect them from the evil one. Sanctify them by the truth; your word is truth…”

“My prayer is not for them alone. I pray also for those who will believe in me through their message, that all of them may be one, Father, just as you are in me and I am in you. May they also be in us so that the world may believe that you have sent me. “Father, I want those you have given me to be with me where I am, and to see my glory, the glory you have given me because you loved me before the creation of the world.”

‭‭John‬ ‭17‬:‭1‬, ‭5‬, ‭9‬, ‭11‬, ‭15‬, ‭17‬, ‭20‬-‭21‬, ‭24‬ ‭NIV‬‬

In a prayer of 26 verses, Jesus makes only three requests, for Himself, for His disciples, and for those who would believe their testimony. The rest of His prayer is fellowship with the Father. 

When we examine the content of Jesus’ requests, we begin to understand what was uppermost on His heart before the cross. 

“Father, the hour has come. Glorify your Son, that your Son may glorify you…And now, Father, glorify me in your presence with the glory I had with you before the world began…”

Finally, the moment has arrived!  This is the moment to which all prophecy pointed and on which all of history pivoted. So much depended on how Jesus would move through this series of events unspoiled by one fragment of sin. If He slipped, sin would disqualify Him from being God’s perfect sacrificial Lamb. 

How would He endure the cross?

What was the issue at stake? Would He perfectly live up to the divine character He carried with Him into His humanity? He would die as a man, but what kind of man? Would He respond or react to the worst injustice and cruelty ever inflicted on a human? Would He be perfectly submitted and obedient to the will of the Father despite all the pressures of an innocent human to the injustice of execution by crucifixion? 

“During the days of Jesus’ life on earth, he offered up prayers and petitions with fervent cries and tears to the one who could save him from death, and he was heard because of his reverent submission. Son though he was, he learned obedience from what he suffered and, once made perfect, he became the source of eternal salvation for all who obey him…”

‭‭Hebrews‬ ‭5‬:‭7‬-‭9‬ ‭NIV‬

“Father, glorify me…” He depended on the Father to give Him the strength in the moment of His greatest weakness, to be who He was in heaven…perfectly God. Throughout His earthly life, He had been in partnership with the Father, obeying Him and carrying out His will in every detail. Could He pull the same thing off to His final breath? Only if He did, would the great plan of redemption be fulfilled on earth that would reflect all the glory of the Father to the whole earth. 

How did Jesus respond?  

“He committed no sin, and no deceit was found in his mouth.” When they hurled their insults at him, he did not retaliate; when he suffered, he made no threats. Instead, he entrusted himself to him who judges justly.”

‭‭1 Peter‬ ‭2‬:‭22‬-‭23‬ ‭NIV‬‬

This plan of salvation, fulfilled by Jesus would confirm Habakkuk’s desire…

“For the earth will be filled with the knowledge of the glory of the Lord as the waters cover the sea.”

‭‭Habakkuk‬ ‭2‬:‭14‬ ‭NIV‬

How would His disciples  handle the world? 

“I pray for them. I am not praying for the world, but for those you have given me, for they are yours. 

Holy Father, protect them by the power of your name, the name you gave me, so that they may be one as we are one. My prayer is not that you take them out of the world but that you protect them from the evil one. Sanctify them by the truth; your word is truth…”

How imperative that the disciples, eleven now because number twelve had disqualified himself through treachery, be preserved from the ravages of their own sin nature, aided and abetted by the world and the devil. They needed the armour of truth in their minds and in their lives to protect them against disqualifying themselves from fulfilling their sacred task. 

In Jesus’ prayer for His disciples… (”protect them from “Poneros”, translated “the evil one”) has less to do with devil, and more do with their corruption from the original character God breathed in Adam, that is “morally degenerate”. As in the Lord’s Prayer, Jesus was more concerned about what His disciples could do to themselves if they followed the desires of their old corrupt nature, and not about what the devil could do to them. They needed a power within to overcome the ravages of their flesh nature. 

“When tempted, no one should say, “God is tempting me.” For God cannot be tempted by evil, nor does he tempt anyone; but each person is tempted when they are dragged away by their own evil desire and enticed. Then, after desire has conceived, it gives birth to sin; and sin, when it is full-grown, gives birth to death.”

‭‭James‬ ‭1‬:‭13‬-‭15‬ ‭NIV‬‬

Jesus’ third request draws in every person who believes in Him to the end of time. 

“My prayer is not for them alone. I pray also for those who will believe in me through their message, that all of them may be one, Father, just as you are in me and I am in you. May they also be in us so that the world may believe that you have sent me. “Father, I want those you have given me to be with me where I am, and to see my glory, the glory you have given me because you loved me before the creation of the world.”

What was Jesus’s chief concern? Unity! Why unity? Jesus has entrusted a body of truth, contained in a written record called “the Word of God” which contains the message of Jesus, the gospel of salvation. He requires that this deposit be kept intact and delivered, without additions or subtractions, to each succeeding generation. He needs a body of witnesses who will be faithful to His Word, both in living out and delivering the true message. 

In this way, there will be unity among Jesus’ followers. If each individual believer lives within the boundaries of His Word and delivers an intact message, the Holy Spirit, who initiated the unity, will enable God’s people everywhere to preserve the unity. 

“Make every effort to keep the unity of the Spirit through the bond of peace. There is one body and one Spirit, just as you were called to one hope when you were called; one Lord, one faith, one baptism; one God and Father of all, who is over all and through all and in all.”

‭‭Ephesians‬ ‭4‬:‭3‬-‭6‬ ‭NIV‬‬

This unity, anchored in the truth revealed in the Word, is the only guarantee that the same message and the same witness to Jesus will be passed on from one generation to the next. Disunity and fragmentation of the church the body of Christ, has happened because faithless people, led by corrupted leaders, have followed human opinion and convenient doctrines rather than the truth. 

“But there were also false prophets among the people, just as there will be false teachers among you. They will secretly introduce destructive heresies, even denying the sovereign Lord who bought them—bringing swift destruction on themselves. Many will follow their depraved conduct and will bring the way of truth into disrepute. In their greed these teachers will exploit you with fabricated stories. Their condemnation has long been hanging over them, and their destruction has not been sleeping…If they have escaped the corruption of the world by knowing our Lord and Savior Jesus Christ and are again entangled in it and are overcome, they are worse off at the end than they were at the beginning. It would have been better for them not to have known the way of righteousness, than to have known it and then to turn their backs on the sacred command that was passed on to them.”

‭‭2 Peter‬ ‭2‬:‭1‬-‭3‬, ‭20‬-‭21‬ ‭NIV‬‬

So, Jesus’ prayer, spoken to the Father at that moment in time, played out then and continues to play out today in keeping His message intact for the salvation of all who believe and are destined for eternal life. 

JOHN’S GOSPEL…THE HOLY SPIRIT IN THEM – 23b

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“I have much more to say to you, more than you can now bear. But when he, the Spirit of truth, comes, he will guide you into all the truth. He will not speak on his own; he will speak only what he hears, and he will tell you what is yet to come. He will glorify me because it is from me that he will receive what he will make known to you.”

John 16:12-14 NIV

It was preparation time for the disciples. Jesus would soon leave them. They needed to know what equipment He would give them to carry out their mandate of reaching the world with His message.  A task so enormous needed someone like Him to guide and empower them, and that is exactly who Jesus promised would come. 

Unlike a worldly “locum”, who would fill in temporarily while the CEO was away, Jesus Himself would come to them in the person of His Spirit. He and the Holy Spirit were so closely connected that the Spirit’s presence would be the perfect representative of His person and mission. The Holy Spirit’s work would be to be Jesus in them. 

Jesus is the truth! The same truth that Jesus is, the Holy Spirit is…so Jesus identified Him as the “Spirit of truth”. 

“But when he, the Spirit of truth, comes, he will guide you into all the truth.”

Whatever Jesus said and did the Holy Spirit would say and do. As Jesus only spoke the words of the Gather, so the Holy Spirit would accurately represent Jesus’ words. 

“He will not speak on his own; he will speak only what he hears, and he will tell you what is yet to come.”

Similarly, as Jesus continually reflected the Father’s glory, so the Holy Spirit would shine the light on Him. 

Could there ever be a person more fully eligible to take Jesus’ place when He returned to the Father! Did you notice that the role of the Spirit in the disciples was not to give them experiences of any kind but to carry on Jesus’ work of doing the Father’s business. Just as Jesus was about the kingdom of God, so the Holy Spirit would have exactly the same purpose, to establish God’s rule in the hearts of those who believe in Jesus. 

The Holy Spirit would raise the spiritually dead to new life, transfer them into the kingdom of God and transform them into sins of God. 

 “Jesus answered, “Very truly I tell you, no one can enter the kingdom of God unless they are born of water and the Spirit.”

‭‭John‬ ‭3‬:‭5‬ ‭NIV

The Holy Spirit would empower God’s people to overcome the old nature… 

“So I say, walk by the Spirit, and you will not gratify the desires of the flesh. For the flesh desires what is contrary to the Spirit, and the Spirit what is contrary to the flesh. They are in conflict with each other, so that you are not to do whatever you want. But if you are led by the Spirit, you are not under the law.”

‭‭Galatians‬ ‭5‬:‭16‬-‭18‬ ‭NIV‬‬

…and reproduce the character of Jesus in His followers…

“But the fruit of the Spirit is love, joy, peace, forbearance, kindness, goodness, faithfulness, gentleness and self-control. Against such things there is no law.”

‭‭Galatians‬ ‭5‬:‭22‬-‭23‬ ‭NIV‬‬

The Spirit would convince Jesus followers that they are righteous because Jesus represents them to the Father…

“…of righteousness, because I go to My Father and you see Me no more;”

‭‭John‬ ‭16‬:‭10‬ ‭NKJV‬‬

…and witness that they are no longer slaves of sin but children of God…

“The Spirit himself testifies with our spirit that we are God’s children.”

‭‭Romans‬ ‭8‬:‭16‬ ‭NIV‬‬

All this and more is the work of God’s Spirit in the believer for one purpose alone…

“On one occasion, while he was eating with them, he gave them this command: “Do not leave Jerusalem, but wait for the gift my Father promised, which you have heard me speak about. For John baptized with water, but in a few days you will be baptized with the Holy Spirit.”…But you will receive power when the Holy Spirit comes on you; and you will be my witnesses in Jerusalem, and in all Judea and Samaria, and to the ends of the earth.””

‭‭Acts‬ ‭1‬:‭4‬-‭5‬, ‭8‬ NIV

All other functions of the Holy Spirit for and in the believer only contribute to this one main purpose…to equip and empower the believer to bear witness that Jesus is the Son of God, and Lord, the supreme authority in God’s kingdom. 

“Therefore God exalted him to the highest place and gave him the name that is above every name, that at the name of Jesus every knee should bow, in heaven and on earth and under the earth, and every tongue acknowledge that Jesus Christ is Lord, to the glory of God the Father.”

‭‭Philippians‬ ‭2‬:‭9‬-‭11‬ ‭NIV‬‬

To be continued…

THE HEARTBEAT OF JESUS

Christian Life, ,

THE HEARTBEAT OF JESUS

I have brought you glory on earth by finishing the work you gave me to do. 5 And now, Father, glorify me in your presence with the glory I had with you before the world began. John 17:4-5

“Father, I want those you have given me to be with me where I am, and to see my glory, the glory you have given me because you loved me before the creation of the world.
25 “Righteous Father, though the world does not know you, I know you, and they know that you have sent me. 26 I have made you known to them, and will continue to make you known in order that the love you have for me may be in them and that I myself may be in them.” John 17:24-26

Everything we have talked about so far leads us to one thing – the heartbeat of Jesus. We cannot leave this study without exploring as deeply as we can, what made Him tick. Who was this man, Jesus? What was His essence? If we are to get anywhere near to what He modelled, we must explore and discover Him.

How did Jesus relate to the Father?

Let’s start at the beginning. Jesus said:

I and the Father are one. (John 10: 30)

That was a very bold statement to make and one which His opponents obviously understood, judging by their reaction.

Again, the Jews picked up stones to stone Him, but Jesus said to them, ‘I have shown you many miracles from the Father. For which of these do you stone me?’ ‘We are not stoning you for any of these,’ replied the Jews, ‘but for blasphemy, because you, a mere man, claim to be God.’ (John 10: 31-33)

What was the oneness He was talking about?

 “When a Torah scribe asked Yeshua which was the foremost commandment in the Law of Moses, he quoted the Shema and its appended command:

The most important one is: ‘Hear, O Israel, the Lord our God, the Lord is one. Love the Lord your God with all your heart and with all your soul and with all your mind and with all your strength’. (Mark 12: 29-30)                                                                                  

“He added the command to love one’s neighbour found in Leviticus 19:18 as a corollary of loving God.

“The scribe responded by affirming Yeshua’s answer. Then he shifted focus to what seems to be a veiled reference to monotheism — perhaps to tempt Yeshua to make a statement about his identity. 

‘Well said, teacher,’ the man replied. ‘You are right in saying that God is one and there is no other but Him.’ (v. 32)

“Yeshua didn’t take the bait. Instead, “When Yeshua saw that he had answered wisely [about the command to love], he said to him, ‘You are not far from the kingdom of God’ ” (v. 34).

“Yeshua didn’t take this discussion of the Shema as an opportunity to affirm a theoretical compound unity in the Godhead or his place in it. Rather, he pointed the scribe to the extraordinary passage in Psalm 110:1, which speaks of a “Lord” who sits next to YHVH.

YHVH said to my LORD [Adon], Sit at my right hand, Until I put your enemies beneath your feet.

“Then Yeshua tested him with an exegetical question about that Lord’s identity: “How is it that the scribes say that the Messiah is the son of David? [Ps 110:1] David himself calls him ‘Lord’: and so, in what sense is he his son?” (Mark 12:35-37).

“The scribe and his theological comrades apparently could not, or dare not, answer Yeshua. Instead, “No one was able to answer him a word . . .” (Matt 22:46).

“Yeshua’s diverting attention from the Shema to Psalm 110:1 is a significant move. In fact, Psalm 110:1 is the most quoted Hebrew text in the NT, more than Deuteronomy 6:4, Isaiah 53, or Psalm 22. He set the exegetical agenda for all his followers — and for Israel.

“In essence, Psalm 110:1 is the other Shema in Hebrew Scripture, the one that completes the revelation of the one God to his people and to all peoples on earth.

“Yeshua’s shift of emphasis could become a vision-changing lesson for modern interpreters to follow his example — instead of the example of their teachers and rabbis.

• Paul Sumner

“The statement by Yeshua, “I and the Father are one” (John 10:30), begs to be interpreted in light of this discussion of echad. In context, it seems clear that he was affirming a unity of purpose, will, and power with God the Father. His Father, who is “greater than all” (John 10: 29), had given him authority and divine power to keep all his sheep safe within the protected sphere of eternal life. He asked his Father that his disciples “may all be one, just as we are one” (John 17: 21-22). What all their unity may be, it does not mean they become united into the one Deity, as in New Age pantheistic religion.

Notwithstanding the accusations of the Jerusalem theologians that Yeshua, “being a man, [made himself] out to be God” (v. 33), he stood his ground that, as “Son of God” (v. 36), the Father was “in” him — not that he was God the Father.” (“Echad” in the Shema” by Paul Sumner).

(For a more thorough discussion of the meaning of echad, see Paul Sumner’s article:

http://www.hebrew-streams.org/works/hebrew/echad.html – retrieved in May 2015).

What did unity with the Father mean to Jesus?

Jesus’s claim to be one with the Father was not about equality with the Father as His right. He renounced that right when He became the Son and lived on earth in a Father/Son relationship. In fact, He delighted in His subordination to the Father. He made no bones about His submission and obedience to the Father, even to the point of embracing the Father’s plan that He become the atoning sacrifice for the sin of the world.

It was this oneness, then, and all the ramifications of this unity expressed in Jesus’ submission and obedience to the Father that set the direction, purpose, and energy of His human life to the very end. The heartbeat of Jesus was His sonship in the truest sense of that relationship with Father.

Scripture is taken from THE HOLY BIBLE, NEW INTERNATIONAL VERSION®, NIV® Copyright © 1973, 1978, 1984, 2011 by Biblica, Inc.® Used by permission. All rights reserved worldwide.

YOU’VE GOT TO HAND IT TO HIM!

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YOU’VE GOT TO HAND IT TO HIM!

“‘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.

“‘I have revealed you to those whom you gave me out of the world. They are yours; you gave them to me and they have obeyed your word. Now they know that everything you have given me comes from you.

“‘For I gave them the words you gave me and they accepted them. They knew with certainty that I came from you, and they believed that you sent me.” John 17:4-8 NIV.

With what calm assurance Jesus could speak to His Father of His submission and obedience! How could He do that? From our perspective, His work was far from done, but He listened to the Father and did what the Father told Him to do. That’s it! This is how a true son should be. From His perspective, His work was finished.

Jesuscame from the Father with a specific task to perform. Contrary to the many ideas people have about His mission, He revealed in His prayer the one reason why He came – to reveal the Father.

“The Son is the radiance of God’s glory and the exact representation of His being, sustaining all things by His powerful word. After He had provided purification for sins, He sat down at the right hand of the Majesty in heaven.” Hebrews 1:3.

In the Old Testament, the Son revealed the nature of the Father in His dealings with His people. He spoke to individuals directly on many occasions through His appearances as the angel of the Lord; to Abraham when He came to tell him of Isaac’s birth and the destruction of the wicked cities of Sodom and Gomorrah, and when He stopped him from sacrificing his son on Mount Moriah; to Moses at the burning bush; to Gideon in the winepress; to Isaiah in the temple, and to many more.

Jesus has many titles but the one specific and appropriate to the Apostle John’s record of His life is “the Word.” In Hebrew thought, the word is a manifestation of God in another form. John saw Jesus as God’s spoken word to the world in visible from. Through Him, God spoke and the words He spoke were a sacred deposit in the lives of those to whom they were given.

The Father gave the gift of twelve men to Jesus, men who belonged to Him because they were a fragment of His chosen people. Jesus viewed them as a sacred trust to whom He was to give the treasure of God’s words, placed within their spirits as seed where the seed would grow, mature and bear fruit as these men believed and did what the words instructed them to do under the guidance and power of the Holy Spirit.

Jesus had spent a whole night in prayer before He chose twelve men out of the many who followed Him at the start of His public ministry. When we look at them, we would think that He made some rather poor choices! But they were the ones the Father had given to Him and they were the ones with the potential to continue His mission to the world.

It is impossible for us to grasp the significance of these eleven, rough, unshaped “diamonds” the Father had entrusted to Him! At this point, they were uncomprehending, frightened and confused individuals, but Jesus had such confidence in His Spirit that He could view them as believing, obedient disciples, filled with God’s word and fully equipped to carry on Jesus’ mission in the world – to reveal the true nature of the Father to both Jew and Gentile.

Jesus’ prayer was not begging and pleading but giving thanks and expressing His trust in the Father that He would do in them through the Holy Spirit all that He intended when He chose them to be Jesus’ disciples. What an encouragement to us who feel so inadequate for the tasks entrusted to us! Jesus assures us that union with Him is the key to fruitfulness.

“Apart from me you can do nothing,” He said but, “We can do all things through Christ who gives us the strength.”

Acknowledgement

Scripture taken from THE HOLY BIBLE, NEW INTERNATIONAL VERSION®, NIV® Copyright © 1973, 1978, 1984, 2011 by Biblica, Inc.® Used by permission. All rights reserved worldwide.