Tag Archives: the hour has come

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. 

PRAYER

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PRAYER

“After Jesus had said this, He looked toward heaven and prayed: ‘Father, the hour has come. Glorify your son, that your Son may glorify you. For you granted Him authority over all people that He might give eternal life to all those you have given Him.

“‘Now this is eternal life, that they know you, the only true God, and Jesus Christ, whom you have sent.'” John 17:1-3.

Jesus prayed…Now this is prayer!

He prayed many times during His earthly life. Few of His prayers were recorded for us. Some were brief, sentence prayers…sometimes He prayed all night…but this is the only time we have a glimpse into the words of His communion with the Father.

This was not the agonising, blood-sweating Gethsemane prayer. This was quiet fellowship with His Abba, pouring out His heartfelt desires before the whirlwind events that were soon to overtake Him. There would be no opportunity then to share His heart with Abba in the silence of the night. In the presence of the men He loved most in the world, He mouthed His hopes and dreams for them and for those who would follow them in faith and obedience.

What emotions were packed into those words, ‘Father, the hour has come’? The “hour” of His suffering had hung over Him from the moment of His birth. It was His reason for coming. It was the pinnacle of His revelation of the Father’s love to a world that would rather not know. It was the final nail in the coffin of His arch enemy and the enemy of all humanity. Did He shiver with anticipation and dread?

The writer to the Hebrews caught the spirit of this moment: “For the joy set before Him He endured the cross, scorning its shame, and sat down at the right hand of the throne of God.” Hebrews 12:2b.

As always, Jesus looked beyond the immediate events to the triumph of God’s final purpose for mankind. “Glorify your Son, that your Son may glorify you.”  We read these words easily enough without understanding the depth of Jesus’ request.

“In the intense pain and suffering I am about to endure; the physical agony of flogging and crucifixion; the emotional pain of rejection, humiliation and betrayal; the searing heat of the devil’s rage against me and the utter abandonment I must face when you, Father, also turn your face away from me, give me the strength to be a perfect reflection of you, your love, mercy and grace, so that the whole world will see you mirrored in me.”

God the Father gave Him, Jesus – this God-man who came from heaven to live the ordinary life of an ordinary human being in a hostile world that hated and rejected Him, and a spiritual realm that fired its entire arsenal of weapons at Him – the authority to give life to all those who believed in Him. Sin had killed them; spiritual death had claimed them and would destroy them forever without His intervention. They would never rise to new life unless He first died in their place to take the rap for their sin; and His death would accomplish nothing unless He did not deserve it.

“Father glorify your Son…” just four simple words, but a world of desire in them. Once again, Jesus exemplified the heart of a true son. This was not about Him. It was ultimately about the Father…; “that the Son may glorify you.” All He wanted, in this whole cross event, was that the wonder of His Father’s true nature would be revealed to the world.

In one short sentence, Jesus forever defined the nature of eternal life – knowing the Father and the Son, because they are one. To know the Son is to know the Father; notice – not know about, but know, implying intimate, personal knowledge and understanding as a husband “knows” his wife. “Adam lay with (knew – yada) his wife and she became pregnant and gave birth to Cain.” Genesis 4:1 NIV.

That takes time, fellowship, and obedience!

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.

DYING TO LIVE

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DYING TO LIVE

“Jesus replied, ‘The hour has come for the Son of Man to be glorified. Very truly I tell you, unless a kernel of wheat falls to the ground and dies, it remains only a single seed. But if it dies, it produces many seeds. Anyone who loves his life will lose it, while anyone who hates his life in this world will keep it for eternal life. Whoever serves me must follow me; and where I am, my servant also will be. My Father will honour the one who serves me.'” John 12:23-26 NIV.

Why was the arrival of a few Greek worshippers seeking Jesus the cue for Him to make this declaration? Up to this point, He kept saying, ‘Not yet; not yet.’ Greeks…Gentiles…non-Jews. What had they to do with this gear-shift in God’s time-table? Had the Father given Him a signal that would alert Him to the beginning of the process that would end in His death?

It seems that their request plunged Him into a season of sorrow that would culminate in the cross — “a man of sorrows and acquainted with grief”. He reassured both Himself and His followers that it was necessary for one seed to die to produce a harvest. The seed will remain fruitless and alone unless it is deposited in the ground to begin the process of reproduction. He was the seed of which God spoke when He condemned the serpent to destruction in the Garden of Eden under the heel of the woman’s seed (Genesis 3:15)

Does this mean that all His followers must suffer the same fate as He did? There is a death far more difficult and painful than even the death He died for us. Only those whose minds are deranged will take their own lives. For the rest, death comes upon us unbidden and we shrink from it as an enemy. However, there is another death which every disciple must choose or, Jesus said, we cannot be His disciples. This is the death of the “I”, the very core of our lives where we are the centre of our universe.

The Apostle Paul called it “a living sacrifice”. Every animal that was sacrificed in the Jewish ritual of shedding blood as a symbol of the debt owed to God for sin, had its head and limbs cut off and its inward parts washed. There is deep meaning in this action — the head and the limbs are offered to God — the processes of thought and action are no longer under my control but surrendered to Him and my inner parts made clean by the shed blood of His lamb. 

Just as Jesus laid down His life for us, so we are called to lay down our lives to Him. Whether that means physical death or not is His choice because we are no longer in charge. We only find our true selves when we submit our lives to Him. As living seeds, we are buried with Him and our lives grow up into something that is being transformed into His likeness.

“‘Now my soul is troubled, and what shall I say? ‘Father, save me from this hour?’ No, it was for this very reason I came to this hour. Father, glorify your name.’ Then a voice came from heaven, ‘I have glorified it, and will glorify it again.'” John 12:27-29 NIV.

We are privileged to eavesdrop on a conversation between Jesus and the Father. Again, we glimpse the heart of a true son. No matter what lay ahead for Him and no matter how much He shrank from the anticipated horror of it, He resolutely submitted to the Father’s will because His concern was for His Father’s glory. He would see it through regardless of the cost.

How He must have treasured the Father’s reassurance that He was right on track throughout His whole life. The Father would provide the strength for Him to complete what He had begun. As long as He kept choosing the Father’s will, He would be empowered by the Holy Spirit to fulfil it perfectly.

The same Holy Spirit that was given to Jesus is at our disposal to enable us to “die” to the relentless self that demands to drive us, and to place our lives at His feet for His glory.

“For if you live according to the flesh, you will die; but if by the Spirit you put to death the misdeeds of the body, you will live.” Romans 8:13 NIV.

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.